HOW TO KEEP YOUNG

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 6962, 30 October 1909, Page 8

HOW TO KEEP YOUNG

(By Eustace Miles, in "M.A.P.")

Of old there was many a search for the elixir of life; ami we still see elixirs of lifo advertised under various names in the papers of to-day. The unthinking public seem to imagine that the secret of youth is fotne reeip?, gome drug, pome easy onc-and-only way; and the post expresses tin's point of view in the request of Tithonus:

I asked thee, give mo immortality; And then thou did'st grant my asking with a Rinilc.

That was tho idea of Tithonus, to have immortality given him. The idea of the sensible man will be to accept no gift, but to earn whatever he wishes ti own. For usually, while stolen goods last but a short time, given goods last but a short timo al.ro. THE "OLDWAKD" HAN.

The signs of oldwardness, the trndency to becomo decrepit, are clear and indisputable. The oldward man lives in a groove, or, at the best, in several grooves. He has a stiff body, unadapted to fresh requirements; he has a stiff mind, not receptive to new ideas. Perhaps he has a heavy body, and in pompous and clumsy, or it may bo that he has a thin and wasted body. Shakespeare, in his "Seven Ages," make."! his fat man pass into the "lean and slippered pantaloon." Whatever his body may be, and it rs almost certain to be stiff and inelastic, the mind is not enthusiastic, not hopeful. Small things aggravate; great things, that should interest, do not interest. There is no need, however, to enlarge on the description of old age. Everyone knows it w.hen ho meets it. Everyone kiiowa that it is not at all a matter of vears; that an American boy may be old at tho age of eight, and an English man or woman young at the age I of eighty. IS OLD AGE NATURAL?

Hitherto old ago has been regarded as a natural thing, though of recent years several peopio have denied that ] old age is natural and inevitable, and they havo told lis how to prevent it. Their advice is worth considering, for the temptations to oldwardness seem almost overpowering. It is so easy to become old. The stream of custom is towards oldwardness. It is a respectable thing to become old; it 'is almost an improper and.indecent thing to remain young. The attitude-of tho world in general, and of the academical world in particular, towards the young man, as though youth were wicked and almost immoral, is, I think, shown in the sinister meaning of the word "froward." "Froward" might have meant progressive, the person . who goes ahead, as young people will. As a matter of fact, it means perverse, nightly, misguided, unreliable, wicked. Frowardness is the ™-ti it- of conservativeiie&->. of retrogression.

Think how hard it is to stem tho tide of custom. There may be a diet that makes for old ago (I believe there certanly are eevoral); but how cxtiroMioly hard it is to change that diet and insist on another. _ .Again, people are dreary and frowning. And dreariness and frowning tend to old age. But how hard it i-=» to keep smiling; how xmorthodox it is to laugh and b« happy—or appear happy. What is tho way, then, to conrmer the temptation to oldwardness? Tho -vvny seems to be to move and !?o youthward in small things, especially in' the things which we can practice # in privacy. It appears almost as if, in order to iceori youmy, to go youths-urn! instead of oldivard, we noed a padded room in which we could dance and jump and skip and run and laugh and sing without shocking or inconveniencing others. True, ofher things might go on in tho padded room—we might mope and so forth; but certainly very few English people will practise* the above youth ward habits unless they'know that they will be neither seen nor heard. THE VALUE OP EXERCISES.

Exercises to increase the litheneas of

the body and to keep the figure young and to keep the weight down, exercises in quickness and adaptiveness—these are the youthward exercises; with an active work easily and well, there is comparatively little danger of pnysical or mental old age. Sheer size of biceps and what is Known as strength, have very little to do with youthwardncss. Then there is stretching. Note how cramped old people become, almost tied into knots, deformed, decrepit. Representations of old age show the aged people an being crooked and bent. Mretciuug is an important antidote to old age. CULTIVATE BItHATHING. Then, again, who imagines an old person as breathing deeply and fully and rythiuicalivr' lie know that his breathing is shallow and incomplete. The youthward person will keep his breathing normal; he will not iet himself breathe wrongly. He must cultivate the breaUiing of the child, at any rate, when lie goes to aleop at bed-tinio. And ho must learn to relax his muscles, so that he may conserve tno energy witinu ir.ru, and not wasto it in useless tension and ohort.

H'naLever helps to endurance, that he [ must seek; and he will nnd a sensible diet of tue greatest beneht. 'ihare was a ridiculous theory, wnich, unfortunately, is revived from time to tune by a tew ignorant doctors and so-calied scientific persons and editors of old-fashioned cyclopaedias, tnat old age is entirely due to certain "sans" which aouund in cereal and other foous. Anu me oiiiei "salt" which is said to tie the cause of this criminal enect is lime. Now, it is true tnat lime aoes abound in some cereals, but it is not the. eartny, irorga.nic hmo; it is tne vegetame,. or ot'uamc, line which has entirely <Hflereuc erieets m tne uouy, as dillerent effects as organic suits Iroan vegeuiuicw, etc., h«J3i-i,iom moigamo r>o, among tno causes—or, at any rate, ttie excess of acio. fuciuuing "unc acid'; I anu vuccorcung to uretcnmk'oa; putrefactive germs in the intest.nes. FOODS TO AVOID.

If this is so, then we should avoid the foiHK* tnat tenu towarus an ej;cesb oi "uric acid" in tne ooay, ana ajnoiig tilese looas very xnouuuly tne aesn-iouus tand in particular lnea-t-suiciis anu extraets) ooiae ni-ot. we say mat a certain of meat-juice villi, in every msutnee, mcieane tno "uric acid" retained in tile buuy; we do not know enough to be aulo to say that, nut we know tnat many wno nave given up the hesh-footis and iound otner oases in tnttir piacos have become younger; b.ood nas beeomo less aci;d; their arteries have become less nara.

THE USE OF SOLVENTS. Another besides mere avoidance, is the use cu solvents. Curiam vegetables Jia\e titmt-.Lils which- apparently 'dissolve certam ac.ct iK>itions oi luotoouy. i uuier elements supply tho uouy ' witu ihoso whicu it it is a nouceaoie loature, revealed by pi-st-mortCMU examinations, that disoaicu livers have oeeii louiid to contain of inorganic "salts" (such a-s tabie-sait), and deficiency of organic "salts." The juices of vegetables and salads, and of some cereals and fruits, may not only cleanse tho body and keep it ireo, but "may ait-o supply the elements for tho lack of niuch tho body i? becoming old. And pure oil ilseu may euppiy >om?th;ng which may help to ward off old age. M-otciinui*.o-;f eiumiaiasu-jiujy fimutaa'n the itsi; of curdiea rnilk, especially wjien it has. the Bulgarian bacilli in it. To , the use of such curdled milk he attri-j butos his own youthitiin~ss; he saj's , thai, the germs destroy the germs of j .death which flourish in the intestines.

AT TILE ROOT OF SUCCESS. Besides these physical end dietetic helps to' youthwardncss, there must bo a mental receptivity to new ideas; there must be the purposeful ctudy of new ideas in the attitude of one prepared to believe. Far example, anyone who read Mr Horace Fletcher's book, which describes his rescue from an apparently incurable* illness to a state of vigorous health by tho simple practice of thor-

! ough mastication, will get not only useful information, but also hopefulness. Hopefulness is at the root of success. j Whatever (jives us hope must bo cultiI vat«l. Tt may be novels; it niav be : fairy tales; or it inv be the still'simpler plan of "self-suggestion,." CRANKS. . Here we must not shrink from studying, the works of cranks. One crank wrote a book on human immortality and then died, I • believe, before she had reached her iiftbietu year. Never mind. Her book suggests sonic very valuable hints. Another, also an American, tuda time .a. male, wrote a. book called "How to Live tor liver.' In his present incarnation ho has lived for ever —so far. 1 do not know how old he is; ho may bo sixteen or ho may bo forty. His work also should be studied. Ho points out how mo cmei reahO'n for hop\> is that wo are constantly dying; old cells and tissues, old materials are giving place to new.. Wo can create the new of. a more vital nature than the old by means of purer food, better bteathing, more hopeiul, kind, and sensible thought. THE NATION'S NEED.

There are som» of tho ways by which we can movo youthward. To move in tho ox'Posite direction, with the crowd, is to lAtome a party to a great crime, if we allow ourselves to become old, wo are hastening on the old age of others. Wnat tne nation needs is a larger number of peopio who have the experience of years joined with . the open-miudedness and enthusiasm of youth. It is not years tnat we wish to Knock off; it is tne avoidable- results of years spent in the wrong way.