Invalidism and Longevity
By Daniel H. Kress
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES said that “one of the necessary requisites for attaining to a good old age is to be rejected for life insurance by a first-class company.” In studying the life history of men who have been blessed with long life, we are led to believe that Mr. Holmes is not far astray. For instance, Louis Cornaro was given up by his doctors at the age of forty. This sobered him, and led him to adopt temperate habits. He became so abstemious that his friends feared and predicted he would die of starvation; but instead of this he managed to get rid of all his ills, and live to the age of about one hundred years. John Wesley, who at eighty-three wrote: “For twelve years I have not known what it is to be weary,” at the age of forty was given up as a hopeless invalid. In 1747 John Wesley wrote to the Bishop of London: “Thanks be to God, since the time that I gave up the use of flesh-meat and wine, I have been delivered from all physical ills.” Horace Fletcher owes his present good health to the fact that ten years ago he was rejected by a first-class life insurance company. It led him to study into the causes of ill health, and put into practise what he learned. As a result Fletcher is in robust health, and has stirred the world upon the importance of proper food mastication. He has done more to bring about a reform on mastication than any other living man. At the same time he has demonstrated its virtues in his own life by numerous severe tests of physical endurance in the presence of leading physiologists of the world, subsisting on only one half the amount of food considered necessary to sustain life. Delicate health in middle life does not preclude the possibility of a long and useful life. On the contrary, it seems to have just the opposite effect, and offers hope for the invalid. David, the psalmist, evidently had a similar experience, for he says: “It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn Thy statutes.” “Before I was afflicted I went astray.” On the other hand, the strong and robust, who imagine they can endure anything, and eat anything, who say, “Nothing hurts me,” do not live out half their days. When a collapse comes, it is usually too late to save life. Recent investigations regarding the effect of hard times upon the general health of the community show that the demand for doctors and chemists during the time of financial depression is considerably diminished. Money being difficult to obtain, people are forced to work hard, and obtain plainer foods, to eat and drink less, and live, in general, more simply. Luxury and plenty is our great foe, and has proved the ruin of nations in the past. The impious feast given by Belshazzar to a thousand of his lords marked the downfall of Babylon. “Fullness of bread and abundance of idleness” were responsible for the ruin of Sodom and Gomorrah. Luxury and effeminacy resulted in the decline and fall of Persia, Greece, and Rome. It is a source of comfort to know that hard times, like sickness, are a blessing in disguise, and tend to prolong, rather than shorten, the life of individuals as well as of nations. “Whom the Lord loveth he correcteth.”