KEEPING FIT.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5284, 8 June 1928, Page 1

KEEPING FIT.

HOW TV LIVE TO BE A HUN’DIIEI).

( By Dr. Frederick Grave's.)

“I put you young chaps to sham© 1” an alert old man of eighty told some young grumblers, the other d'ay. “Never had a day’s illness in my life and always worked hard. Yet you slackers grouse about your jobs, your grub, your ailments. ...” “Oh. ].et me get out of it !” he shouted in mock anger, as. flourishing his stick ferociously, he alighted from the train.

“What a perfect old terror 1” one of the ‘slackers’ laughed, and though at first ,1 felt inclined to agree with the old man, and certainly envied him his vigour, my sympathies were divided when I recalled that the last speaker went through the fire to Ypres, his palid companion was broken on the Somme, and the third ‘slacker’ lost his arm at Gallipoli—mere trifles from wh'ch the fierce old veteran’s vaunted age had mercifully saved him. “Keeping fit at fifty.” is a favourite topic for newspaper articles. Not long ago a correspondent wrote that he thought-it was a pity if a man of fifty could not look after himself in these days, and that there would be more use in telling people how to keep fit at eighty. And what about the youth of ninety ? For, really, to-day. with all that is done to prolong life and all the adv ! ce given on health matters, fifty is no great age for a ma.n. and he has little excuse to “shuffle off this mortal soil” in an unseemly hurry. A FAIR WARNING. The things that age are worry and strain, digestive faults:, toxins absorbed from the tissue waste, and excess of all kinds. The sum of knowledge is : Take life ea.sier after fifty—diet, drink, exertion, worry ; relax business gradually for a hobby, and. above all, avoid stagnation and constipation. There is, much talk to-day of rejuvenation by the transplantation of animal glands. And yet—’« many people, perhaps old-fashioned, there is something wrong- in the idea of senility grasping a second helping of youth—that elusive bubble that once released is chased in vain.

It is the old-world legend of the Faust, and though Goethe does, not tell us how the devil renewed the alchemist’s youth, or what the witch gave him, we do know that the bill was rendered in due time and had to be met. He who “cheats the devil” must pay for it'~at least in a hardter. death.

By all, means let us try to prolong ],ife naturally by wise and healthy living, but beware how we interfere with nature herself. And who wants to live to 100 ? At eighty surely a. man has had a fair innings.

When one thinks of the millions that were cruelly cut off a few years ago in the flower and prid.e of youth one has but scant sympathy, as yet, with the idea of a race of centenarians.