432 THE TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



and the shedding of the teeth, for example belong to infancy and childhood. Some 

 people as they grow old seem only to wither and dry up sharp-featured and 

 shrivelled old folk, yet withal wiry and tough, clinging to life and letting death 

 have them, as it were, by small instalments slowly paid. With others women 

 more often than men the first sign of old age is that they grow fat, and this 

 abides with them till, it may be, in a last illness sharper than old age, they are 

 robbed even of their fat. 



Death by extreme old age may in many instances be considered as the desirable 

 end of a long continued and perhaps weary journey. The sufferer falls asleep as he 

 might do after severe fatigue, and the long pilgrimage of life is brought to a close 

 with little apparent derangement of the ordinary mental powers. Without pain, 

 anger, or sorrow, the intellectual faculties lose their brightness ; ambition ceases or 

 is merged into the desire for repose ; ideas of time, of space, and duty, lingeringly pass 

 away ; to sleep and not to dream is the pressing and still more pressing need, until at 

 length it whiles away nearly all the hours. The awakenings are short and shorter, 

 painless, careless, happy awakenings, to the hum of a busy world, to the merry 

 sounds of children at play, to the sounds of voices offering aid, to the effort of 

 talking on simple topics and recalling events long since past, and then again to 

 overpowering sleep. The final scene is often brief, and the phenomena of dying 

 are almost imperceptible. The senses fail, as if sleep were about to supervene, the 

 perceptions become gradually more and more obtuse, and quietly and calmly the 

 long last journey is undertaken, so that we can scarcely tell the precise instant at 

 which the solemn change from life to death has been completed. It would seem 

 that the act of dying may be as painless as that of falling asleep ; indeed, those who- 

 have recovered after apparent death from drowning, and after sensation has been 

 completely lost, assert that they have experienced no pain. The mind at the solemn 

 moment may be absorbed in an instantaneous review of those impressions made upon 

 the brain in bygone times, which are said to present themselves with such over- 

 whelming power, vividness, and force. This purely painless process, this descent by 

 oblivious trance into oblivion, is the true euthanasia the sequel of health, the 

 happy death engrafted on the perfect life. 



So much, then, for euthanasia ; a death like this may be desirable, but, practically, 

 the majority of us like to live as long as we can, and we may advantageously 

 consider what steps we may take, when advanced in years, to prolong life and 

 preserve our faculties unimpaired. 



In the first place old people have undoubtedly certain advantages over their 

 younger brethren. They have passed the ordeal of epidemics, and if they have 

 never had scarlet fever or whooping-cough, they are not likely to catch it now. 

 Then, too, they have passed the age at which consumption and many other diseases 

 are developed, and so far, as we have said, they have a decided advantage. But 

 on the other hand, old people, and those who have lost their teeth, run some risk 

 of not being sufficiently nourished in consequence of swallowing their food too rapidly. 

 They are often hurried over their meals, through the thoughtlessness of those around 

 them, and since they chew slowly, and secrete saliva slowly, the food remains 

 undigested. Their juniors should know this, and, remembering it, should govern. 



