bowels, however, seemed to be much affected by the fit of palsy; and not
being inclined, so far as I can learn, to the use of fruit and coarse
bread, he was sometimes compelled to use laxatives.

When he was about seventy years of age, however, all his paralytic
symptoms had disappeared; and his health was so excellent, for a person
of his years, as to excite universal admiration. This continued till he
was nearly ninety. His mind, up to this time, was almost as entire as in
his younger days; none of his bodily functions, except his sight, were
much impaired. So perfect, indeed, was the condition of his physical
frame, that nobody, who had not known his history, would have suspected
he had ever been apoplectic or paralytic.

When about ninety years of age, his health began slightly to decline. A
little before his death, he began to take a little meat. This, however,
did not save him--nature being fairly worn out. On the contrary, it
probably hastened his dissolution. His bowels became irregular, his
pulse increased, and he fell into a bilious fever, of which he died at
the great age of ninety-three.

Probably there are, on record, few cases of longevity more instructive
than this. Besides showing the evil tendency of living at the expense of
life, it also shows, in a most striking manner, the effects of simple
and unstimulating food and drink, even in old age; and the danger of
recurring to the use of that which is more stimulating in very advanced
life. In this last respect, it confirms the experience of Cornaro, who
was made sick by attempting, in his old age, and at the solicitation of
kind friends, to return to the use of a more stimulating diet; and of
Parr, who was destroyed in the same way, after having attained to more
than a hundred and fifty years.

But the fact that living at the expense of life, cuts down, here and
there, in the prime of life, or even at the age of fifty, a few
individuals, though this of itself is no trivial evil, is not all. Half
of what we call the infirmities of old age--and thus charge them upon
Him who made the human frame _subject_ to age--have their origin in the
same source; I mean in this living too fast, and exhausting prematurely
the vital powers. When will the sons of men learn wisdom in this matter?
Never, I fear, till they are taught, as commonly as they now are reading
and writing, the principles of physiology.

HOWARD, THE PHILANTHROPIST.

Although individual cases o