The question whether long life is, after all, desirable does not admit of any general answer. Much depends upon the previous history of the individual, and his bodily and mental condition. The last stages of a well spent life may be the happiest, the shuffling-off of the mortal coil, though calmly expected, need not be wished for. The picture afforded by cheerful and mellow old age is a lesson to younger generations. Elderly people may, if they choose, become centers of improving and refining influence. On the other hand, old age can not be regarded as a blessing when it is accompanied by profound decrepitude and disorder of mind and body. Senile dementia, or second childishness, is, of all conditions, perhaps the most miserable, though not so painful to the sufferer as to those who surround him. Its advent may be accelerated by ignorance and neglect, and almost assuredly retarded or prevented by such simple measures as have been suggested. No one who has had opportunities of studying old people can shut his eyes to the fact that many of the incapabilities of age may be prevented by attention to a few simple rules, the observance of which will not only prolong life and make it happier and more comfortable, but will reduce to a minimum the period of decrepitude. Old age may be an incurable disease, admitting of but one termination, but the manner of that end, and the condition which precedes it, are, though not altogether, certainly to a very great extent, within our own power. NATURAL LIFE AND DEATH: AND RULES FOR HEALTH BENJAMIN WARD RICHARDSON, M.D. [Dr. Richardson was an English physician of uncommon originality and ability. He founded and for some years edited the _Journal of Public Health_, chiefly directed toward the prevention of disease. In 1875 he created widespread interest by sketching an imaginary "Model City of Health" to be called Hygeia. He wrote several important books; from "The Diseases of Modern Life," published by D. Appleton & Co., New York, are taken the extracts which follow.] By the strict law of Nature a man should die as unconscious of his death as of his birth. Subjected at birth to what would be, in the after-conscious state, an ordeal to which the most cruel of deaths were not possibly more severe, he sleeps through the process, and only upon the subsequent awakening feels the impressions, painful or pleasant, of the world into which he is delivered. In this instance the perfect law is fulfilled because the carrying of it out is retained by Nature herself: human free-will and the caprice that springs from it have no influence. By the hand of Nature death were equally a painless portion. The cycle of life completed, the living being sleeps into death when Nature has her way.