Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/352

348 of intelligent, indeed most wise and capable Hindoos, had acquired great length of days without impairment to their best powers.

All such matters must be discussed with due deliberation and full knowledge of all attainable facts. The topic at the time interested me exceedingly, and in the course of a research which I made upon the causation of mental impairment, imbecility and idiocy, I became convinced that the use of opium by the individual was of relatively little harm in some exceptional instances. It certainly does not seem to be as hurtful as the habitual use of alcohol. So far as the effect of these poisons, for poisons they are, upon the second generation, it was shown that alcohol produced infinitely worse results upon the second and third generation of those that used it than followed the use of opium.

Close to the realm of deliberate thought and rational conclusions comes the debatable ground of varying opinion. The study of the life history of aged people would furnish much of value if it could be undertaken judiciously and thoroughly studied. The opinion of these or those old persons as to what article of diet, the use or omission of which aided them to acquire their age, comes close up to the realm of conjecture. As an instance of my study may be cited that of a certain lady, famous in my city for wit and wisdom, and who attained a ripe old age with apparently no diminution of her powers. She was on one occasion presiding in a distant city over a meeting of Colonial Dames, and was regarded as almost a prophetess by many, both friends and strangers. She told me that a certain lady approached her with much deference one morning and asked with bated breath if she would be so good as to tell her to what she attributed her great age and elasticity of mind and body. In the way of a joke she told her that it had always been her custom to eat great quantities of salt; and in relating the story to me, this lady said that she had no doubt that by this time that stranger was thoroughly well pickled in endeavoring to follow her lead.

It must always be borne in mind that old age is an inexact term. During the middle ages, statistics would seem to show that the recognized span of life was much shorter than it is now. As an instance of this. Old John of Gaunt, who was a byword, throughout many troublesome years, of age and wisdom, yet died before he was sixty. Warwick, the King Maker, whose history lapsed over that of many sovereigns, is said to have died at the age of fifty-four. In our own time great improvements have been wrought, more particularly within the last quarter of a century, in the matter of increasing the tenure of life, and the average of age has been brought up in a most satisfactory fashion to that which we could not have expected, although optimists have hoped for.

Again, mere existence beyond the ordinary bounds set by nature is of little value unless accompanied by many characteristics and qualities which make life worth living. It certainly should not be a desirable