Читать книгу Old Age Deferred. The causes of old age and its postponement by hygienic and therapeutic measures онлайн

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The condition of the teeth must also be inspected, for people without sufficient teeth cannot chew their food properly, and thus gastric and intestinal catarrhs may arise.

Just as important, if not more so, than the condition of the above-mentioned vital organs, is the mental state. Thousands of years ago it was a manifest truth that the mind governs the body. In judging an individual’s chances of long life, we cannot omit the importance of his mental character. As a rule a man with a well-balanced mind, who is not disturbed by the smaller worries of life, has more chances of a green old age than a man whose easily impressionable mind exposes him to continual agitation and anxiety, and who is overwhelmed by the slightest untoward event. A man who is a born optimist and who views everything in a rosy light, has got far more chance than a pessimist who sees everything in a cloud. A man who is ambitious and never satisfied is more liable to mental and physical change than one who asks for little and easily gets it. Being disappointed in his ambition, as so often happens, he becomes despondent, especially if he is lacking in will-power, which depends on the activity of the thyroid as previously mentioned. In this condition he may not only lose his appetite and become ill-nourished, but he is also more liable to succumb to the incessant attacks of microbes, among which he lives, and which gain easy access to the body in melancholic conditions. Sorrow may act in the same harmful manner.