Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/648

626 of all that is brought there. Surplusage can do but harm. The body-associates itself with a certain well-known evil agent in finding for idle food "some mischief still to do," although, in some individuals, a drain-age for unused material may be made through the intestinal or renal or cutaneous organs, which, be it remembered, were never meant to serve that purpose, and which are likely to suffer from the strain thus put upon them. In many a more deleterious vent is found in gout, bilious attacks, etc., which, at the same time, cause a temporary arrest of supply, or in graver inflammatory attacks, or the still graver malignant affections. The temperance in all things of our centenarians has, without doubt, been one great means of keeping order in their nutritive system, and preventing aberrations into morbid processes. Few more mischievous notions have found their way into common acceptance than the idea that strength is proportionate to the amount of food taken; and it is accepted and mischievous, no doubt, in a greater degree than it would otherwise be, because it rests upon the basis of truth that strength can not be maintained without a sufiicient supply of food.

The total abstainers will not fail to observe that twelve of our centenarians had been through life, or for a long period, in their ranks; that twenty took little alcohol; that this was, in the case of some of them, very little; and that eight were moderate. No. 8, it is true, often drank to excess on festive occasions; No. 14 was a free beer-drinker; and No.35 "drank like a fish during his whole life," which probably means when he could, for it is added that "he could not usually get much." The exceptions, therefore, show little against the rule. It is, perhaps, scarcely less important to note that our centenarians were, for the most part, small meat-eaters.

The early rising was in many of the instances necessitated by their occupations. Still, this habit must be regarded as an associate or sequence of the healthful activity just mentioned, and of an activity pervading the reparative work which has to be done in sleep—an activity which quickly and thoroughly refits the body for its next day's work, and gives the energy, the willingness, the desire to resume it. Sleep should come quickly, be intense while it lasts, and cease quickly and completely; quite wake or quite asleep; no hovering between the two; no need of, or desire for, a little more slumber, a little more sleep. "When one turns in bed, it is time to turn out," whether rightly or wrongly attributed to the Duke of "Wellington, is a saying worthy of him, and accords with the energy that contributed to make his life great as well as long.

While we thus gain more clear knowledge of the qualities for, and the adjuncts to, centcnarianisra, an examination of the table shows that there is no royal road to it. We see that it is attained under a variety of conditions, and that few persons can be said to be excluded from the prospect of it. With regard to certain of the important