Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/351

Rh has been claimed by some, that this can be done by choice of foods. The use of some articles of diet tends to encourage the deposit of lime salts or to discourage elimination. It may be that by a careful review of the experiences of certain aged folk, we might find a guide to the line of diet by which these good effects can be secured. Old age may not be altogether due to accident in the choice, nor selection of conditions, in the avoidance of accidental damage or trauma. Time will not permit enlargement on this subject now, but there is interesting and instructive reading to be found here and there for those who desire to know. The most notable book devoted to this subject is the 'Autobiography of Louis Cornaro,' whose life was prolonged far beyond that age which is ordinarily thought to be possible, by extreme care chiefly as to choice of diet, and he has set it forth in a most entertaining volume. It is only a partial guide, because temperamental differences must be considered, in the light of the experience of each person, race and community. Families and individuals and nations have different habits of diet. That which might suit one group of cases would not be an exact guide for another, but in the main the principles are the same.

These principles in brief consist in a choice of vegetable and semi-animal foods in preference to red meats. I took a course in physical training long ago under a man who possessed phenomenal vigor, much older than he looked, and he declared that bread, by this is meant leavened bread chiefly, was the most pernicious agent in producing the stiffness of the tissues. This is merely instanced to show how strong convictions are at times, and how they differ from customary beliefs. I do not know how much truth is in this thought, but am of the opinion it is worth attention. Again, the question of the use or non-use of alcohol must be settled for each one. For myself I believe alcohol to be almost altogether bad, although prepared to admit that there may be instances where its use is to be recommended. Some years since there was a popular agitation on the subject of the use of opium. The outgrowth of the opium traffic sanctioned by the British government gave rise to much discussion, which if I have been rightly informed was carried on both by the government in India and by exportation to China. The contention waxed hot and almost all the testimony was against the traffic and encouragement of the use of this baneful drug. In the midst of this, however. Sir Joseph Fayrar, at that time the one chief in authority in medical politics in the government of India, wrote a most powerful and able defence of the use of opium, particularly its habitual use, in which he showed that among certain races, especially those of the Orient, opium was not followed by the destruction of mind and body which it is our custom to consider inevitable. He gave instances, numerous and convincing, that by the use of this drug or food, as it might possibly be called, a large