548 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



muscular exertion such as lifting. Nor should activities be sudden and 

 severe, otherwise the danger of a false step and a fall may result in 

 a shock or fracture or both. Nor is it important nor desirable that the 

 muscles should be kept at their full strength, even if it were possible. 

 The quality of musculature is mainly desirable for the purpose of 

 oxygenation and to maintain full skin activity, freedom from stiffness 

 and the consequent compression upon the blood vessels and nerves. In 

 short, the component parts of the machine in healthy old age are slowly 

 and equally weakened. They fail to respond to calls, the centers giving 

 out less early than the outer parts, but these same centers should be 

 maintained at their best for so long as it is possible. Finally the wheels 

 of the machine stop. This slow decline is really a beautiful spectacle and 

 requires the sheltering influences of civilization and sympathetic care. 

 In the state of primitive society man died even as the animals and 

 birds die, the one by the hand of the stronger. When assailed by sick- 

 ness or age, death came swiftly from one or another agency of nature, 

 either from animal or man. In civilization much vigor can be con- 

 served indefinitely, or at least to well toward the century mark, provided 

 the aged persons exercise judgment in the manner of life lived; and 

 if cut off before a reasonable time the fault lies within themselves or 

 their circumstances. In this slower decline it is more possible for 

 disease and decay to become manifest, but even here prevention is a large 

 possibility. If the heart, or the digestive organs, shall be kept dispro- 

 portionately vigorous they will overload and press the other organs, and 

 one of these, the weaker one, gives way. 



The use of inorganic drugs has little place in relieving the grave 

 disorders of the old. When these are found in the form of the natural 

 mineral waters they have, since time immemorial, been held in high 

 esteem for definite and indisputable good effects, the nature of which 

 has never been satisfactorily explained. Modern studies on the phys- 

 iology of the blood, especially of the serum, helps to account for this. 

 Eecently Trunecek, of Prague, has announced a method of treating 

 the phenomena of arteriosclerosis which has been not only most suc- 

 cessful, but suggestive, and seems to me to throw light on the value of 

 mineral waters which will prove a rich field for research. His thesis 

 is that certain salts can be introduced into the blood current which 

 shall aid in dissolving the calcium phosphate found in the structure 

 of the sclerosed vessels. Hence he adopted the plan of throwing into 

 the circulation direct, by hypodermoclysis or intravenously, a strong 

 solution of sodium phosphate and magnesium phosphate which are 

 found normally in blood serum but only in minute quantities. His 

 followers have obtained gratifying results, and many modifications are 

 made of his original solution. Leopold Levi used this by the bowel 

 and the mouth and it was found that the latter gave just as good effects. 



Under this treatment the usual discomforts and evidences of dis- 



