WHY NOT LIVE A CENTURY?

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5503, 2 March 1896, Page 4

WHY NOT LIVE A CENTURY?

"In the coming time," said a famous English poet, " a man or woman eighty or one hundred years old will be more beautiful than the youth or maiden of twenty, as the ripe 'fruit is more beautiful and fragrant than the green. These ripe men and women will have no wrinkles on the brow, no 'grey hair, no bent and feeble bodies. On the contrary, they will have perfect hearing, clear eyesight, so ipxd teeth, elastic step and mental vigour." \ " Does this sound absurd and impossible ? Why should it? People over one hundred years old are frequently met with in these days, as they have been as far as human records gq back. A. man is of no real value until he is past "fifty and gained-control of his passions and acquired some practical wisdom. After that he ought to have from fifty to seventy-five working years before him. Whoso dies short of one hundred years (bar violence) dies of his own folly or that of his ancestors. One chief thing, however, we must learn. What is it ? Take an illustration — such as we see multitudes of on every side. Mr Richard Leggate, of New Bolingbroke, near Boston, Lincolnshire, is a man now somewhat over seventy. He is a farmer, well known and highly respected in his district. In the spring of 1891 he had an attack of influenza from which he never fully recuperated. The severe symptoms passed away, of course, but he remained weak. No doubt food would have built him up, provided he could have eaten and digested it. Yet here was the trouble, his appetite was poor, and what little he took, as a matter of necessity rather than of relish, seemed to act wrong with him. Instead of giving him strength it actually produced pain and distress in the sides, chest, and stomach. Then, again — which is a common experience — he would feel a craving for something to eat ; yet, on sitting down to a meal in the hope to enjoy it, the stomach would suddenly rebel against the proceeding, and he would turn from the table without having swallowed a mouthful. Nothing could come of this but increasing weakness, and it wasn't long before it was all he could do to summon strength to walk about. As for working on his farm, that, to be sure, was not to be thought of. He had a doctor attending him, as we should expect. If the services of a learned medical man are ever needed, they must be in such a case — when Nature seems to be all broken up, and themachinery runs slow, as our family clocks do when we have forgotten to wind them at the' usual hour. Well, Mr Leggafe took the prescribed medicines, but got no better. He asked the doctor why that was, and he appeared to be puzzled for an answer at first. Naturally enough, a doctor doesn't like to admit that his medicines are doing no good, because he expects to be paid for them; and then there is his professional pride, besides. However, he finally said, "If lny medicines fail to make you better.it is owing to your age." That idea was plain as a pikestaff, and if the patient had never got any better afterwards, why who could dispute what the doctor said ? Nobody, of course. It would look just, as though Mr Leggate werereally going to pieces fromoldage. But something subsequently happened which spoils that easy theory of the case. What it was he tells us in a letter dated Feb. 3, 1893. " After doctoring several months without receiving any benefit, I determined to try Mother Seigel's Curative Syrup. I got a bottle from Mr G. H. Hanson, Chemist, New Bolingbroke. After taking the Srup for a week I was much better. I had a good appetite, and what I ate digested and strengthened me; and by the time I had taken two bottles I was well and* strong' as et<er. You may publish this statement if you think proper. (Signed) h Richard Leggate." So it proved, after all, that Mr Leggate was not suffering from old age (at seventy-? Nonsense!) but from indigestion and dyspepsia. When Mother Seigel's great discovery routed that, he felt "well and strong as ever." Now for the moral: It is not Father Time who mows people down thus early in life ; it is the Demon of Dyspepsia. Keep him away, and — barring accidents — you may live a century.