Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/354

350 condition of the best results. Regularity of conduct is important both in bodily habits and the daily routine of labor or pleasure.

Certain organic defects bear heavily upon the integrity of the ageing organism unless corrected. What miseries have followed unrelieved disturbances of the ears, nose, throat, digestion and eyes in many important lives, can never be fully known. George M. Gould has furnished an amazing lesson in the need for exactitude in correcting refractive errors in the eyes in his analysis of the causes of ill health in later life of epoch making men, among whom are Wagner, Beethoven, Spencer, Huxley, Darwin, Carlyle, Browning, Parkman, DeQuincey (who was thus driven to use opium) and Whittier. The continued usefulness of these men was thus cut short in mid career, let alone the agonies they were compelled to suffer unrelieved.

Open air life is a sine qua non. Many old people become hypersensitive te the cold and exposure to the extremes of temperature can become easily fatal. To spend much time in the open air is a guarantee of health, over and above that which was aforetime enjoyed if one has been in the habit of remaining much indoors. It is wise for old people to follow the sun by early rising and going early to bed. To utilize the young morning hours is best for all, but for the aged it is essential. Much sleep is not needed for them, unless they especially crave it as some do and most do toward the end. Dozing during the day is pleasant and salutary, but long night sleep is not necessary as a rule.

The suitability of clothing is deserving of careful study for each. As a rule old people crave much heavy underwear and they are disinclined to expose the skin to the air, and especially to drafts. This is due partly to the lessened activity of the cutaneous capillary circulation, to lowered cellular resistance and blood making power, but also habits and prejudices exert a most potent influence. The readiness with which old people catch cold has more to do with their habits than their age. It is a matter of common knowledge that the products of waste must be more carefully removed in the old than the middle aged. In this the skin must be reckoned as perhaps the greatest eliminating organ and the one most neglected. It is easy to drink lithia water or use other medicines. It is no effort to swallow a pill at night; but unless equipped by a valet or body servant the care of the skin involves personal effort, but one which will amply well repay. Finally, an enormous field of possibilities is opened by studiously striving to retain the fullest elasticity of all the tissues; and to this I desire to call particular attention with some detail and emphasis in the later sections of this article.

The constantly forming poisons invading the nobler tissues require to be removed. If the organic activities can not be relied on, a judicious use of laxatives, diuretics and special baths must be resorted to.