Maintaining Health (Formerly Health and Efficiency)Alsaker, Rasmus Larssen
Science
Maintaining Health (Formerly Health and Efficiency)
Alsaker, Rasmus Larssen
Diet; Hygiene
"Asa Goodwin, of Serrett, Alabama, is one hundred and six years old. His
endurance powers are even more remarkable than those of Mrs. Wagoner or
Abraham Wilcox. He walks five miles every day. He works several hours
daily in his garden, eats anything he likes, and reads without glasses.
His family is probably the largest in the United States. A reunion
recently held in his honor was attended by eight hundred and fifty
persons, three hundred and fifty being blood relatives. Goodwin has been
a hunter all his life and he frequently takes down his rifle and proves
that his aim is still good. He ascribes his length of life and vitality
to his great interest in outdoor sport and hunting, when a young man,
developing a rugged constitution that lasted him many years after he was
forced to quit strenuous work because of 'old age.' He asserts that he
was so busy living that he reached one hundred and six years before he
realized it and wants to live fifty years more if possible. 'I feel as
if I could do it, too,' he declares. 'I now can take my ease and comfort
and the world looks good to me. I have always lived a temperate life,
never drank, never kept late hours, and still have had as much or more
fun than the average man, I think. It is only now when I have nothing to
do that I get to worrying and when I find myself in that condition I
take a walk or weed the garden and then feel better.'"
These people are not in what some call the higher walks of life, but
they have succeeded in living, where almost all fail. They have been
useful members of society, satisfied to take life as it comes, and thus
they have gathered much of the sweet. They have enjoyed life, and those
who enjoy give enjoyment to others. It takes an audience to make even
the best of plays.
Mrs. Wagoner is not rich, but she has a philosophy that is riches
enough. She knows that she receives through giving. She has lived this
knowledge, which has brought blessings upon her.
These people have all led simple lives and they have worked. There is no
secret about growing old gracefully. It means self-control, simple
living, work for body and mind, cleanliness of body and mind, and the
most important part of physical cleanliness is a clean colon. It is
necessary to have a tranquil mind most of the time, for anger and worry
are injurious to health.
The average span of life is lengthening. In the sixteenth century the
average European did not live to be twenty years old. Now he lives to be
about forty. The same increase has taken place in America. In India and
China the average of life is still below twenty-four years. As
civilization advances the tendency is for the average of life to
lengthen, provided life does not grow so complex that knowledge is
antidoted by too great artificiality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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