Health and Temperance

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 7, 1889

Health and Temperance.

THE HYGIENE OF OLD AGE.

H. C. Wood, M. D., has an excellent article under the foregoing title in the December Good Health, from which the following, relative to food and how it should be eaten, is an extract:—

The first question is in regard to food. The teeth in old age are, of course, lost, and they should, unless under exceptional circumstances, be replaced by artificial teeth; for the thorough chewing of food is even more necessary in the old man than in the young, because in the old the digestive powers are apt to fail. With the best artificial teeth, mastication is apt to be imperfectly performed; hence, the food of the aged should be soft and readily comminuted, and especially should it be of easy digestion. Very few old people need stimulating diet; very many are injured by an excess of nitrogenous food. The kidneys, like all other organs, are feeble; and if meats and other rich foods are used in excess, they greatly increase the strain upon these organs. Milk and milk products, or preparations of breadstuffs cooked with milk, should form a very large proportion of the food of the ordinary aged individual; but individual peculiarities differ so much that personal medical counsel should in all cases be taken, so that the diet may be regulated to the needs of the individual case. Very many old people are hurt by the use of food in excessive quantity; but little exercise can be taken, all growth has ceased, and the bodily furnaces which make heat are able to destroy but very little of food fuel.