Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 687. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.
statesmen, judges, and some other classes. If not a new feature in society, this mental strain is at least more conspicuous than it was formerly, because the struggle to attain high rewards is greater, and more dependent on individual exertion than it seems to have been in past and less exacting times. In short, in derangement of the nervous system, leading to no end of functional derangements in the heart, stomach, and so on, in all which are found reasons why so many of our most eminent notabilities are removed ere they reach fourscore. They fall victims to a heedless, certainly unfortunate, overtasking of the brain. Medical men in high practice, though well aware of the dangers of professional exhaustion, are not always exempt from the charge of being careless of their own health. The wiser among them endeavour to limit their hours of work, and at the proper season retreat to the country, for the sake of invigorating rural sports. But for these precautions, the death-rate among London physicians would be very much greater than it is. The late Sir Henry Holland is known to have greatly lengthened his days by habitually making long autumnal tours over the globe; always returning invigorated for fresh work. The very common practice among people in business of taking a month's holiday at the sea-side, or some inland healthful resort – a practice immensely facilitated by railways and steamboats – has the same beneficial tendency. As regards the salutary results of checking the mental strain in literary labour, we could speak from a degree of personal experience. We have for the last forty years – whether in town or country, whether in winter or summer – never written a line after nine o'clock at night. When that hour strikes, the ink-glass is shut up, the pen and paper laid aside, and the mind is allowed to calm down before retiring to rest. The rule is peremptorily followed with the best consequences.
In the varied pressure of inexorable circumstances it may not be possible to be so extremely guarded. Lives are abruptly lost, the most precious in the community. He, however, who falls in the fair fight of life, though mistaken has been his eagerness, may be said to fall nobly. It is a considerably different thing when men shorten their days through luxurious indulgences, in wanton disregard of the rules essential to the preservation of bodily health. Up till fifty years of age, it perhaps signifies little how some of these rules are neglected, because the constitution originally vigorous resists or overcomes various deteriorating influences. At all events, there may be no immediate mischief. After fifty, and more particularly sixty, a change has taken place. The breathing, the digestive, the circulatory processes are less able to endure tear and wear. A little indiscretion may derange the whole machine, and bring it prematurely to a dead stop.
It is wonderful how much may be done to protract existence by the habitual restorative of sound sleep. Late hours, under mental strain, are of course incompatible with this solacement. On this topic Dr Richardson says it has been painful for him to trace the beginnings of pulmonary consumption to late hours at 'unearthly balls and evening parties,' by which rest is broken, and encroachments made on the constitution. But, he adds, 'If in middle age the habit of taking deficient and irregular sleep be still maintained, every source of depression, every latent form of disease, is quickened and intensified. The sleepless exhaustion allies itself with all other processes of exhaustion, or it kills imperceptibly, by a rapid introduction of premature old age, which leads directly to premature dissolution.' There, at once, is an explanation why many people die earlier than they ought to do. They violate the primary principle of taking a regular night's rest. If they sleep, it is disturbed. They dream all sorts of nonsense. That is to say, they do not sleep soundly or for any useful purpose; for dreaming is nothing more than wild, imaginative notions passing through the brain while half sleeping or dozing. In dreaming, there is no proper or restorative rest.
It is a pity that Dr Richardson, as in the case of other medical writers, has refrained from stating that the practice of late dining, always growing later and later, to suit fashionable fancies, is quite incompatible with that tranquil and wholesome night's rest which contributes materially to a healthy and protracted old age. How can any one who inconsiderately sits eating and drinking till within an hour or two of midnight, so as to render refreshing sleep pretty nearly impossible, expect to reach eighty, ninety, or a hundred years of age? Narcotics are taken to procure the much-coveted sleep. They give no natural repose, besides otherwise doing harm. It is customary to say of sentiments of remorse that they 'murdered sleep.' So at least said Macbeth, and, as is known, he spoke from very unpleasant experience. But as things go, sleeplessness arises less from remorse and other mental affections than from physical causes connected with digestion. The stomach, to use a familiar phrase, is out of sorts. And in a vast number of cases it would be wonderful if it were otherwise. Just think of the habitual overtasking of the digestive functions and corresponding secretions, from the practice of late eating and drinking – late ceremonious dinners, which, from their tiresome sameness, their simpering platitudes, their dull insincerity, their waste of food, waste of time, and waste of health and comfort, can scarcely be said to claim a single redeeming feature. If that be called social intercourse, it is a downright sham – poor outcome indeed of the accumulated intelligence and inventiveness of the nineteenth century. One of the dangers of dining out in winter arises from exposure to cold and damp night-air. The excuse usually made is, that of being well wrapped up. But although that is right in its way, the fact is well known to medical practitioners that grievous mischief may be done in an instant of time. By a single gulp of cold air, or by a chill to the feet, in stepping from the door to a carriage, a deed may be done beyond the power of science to undo. Our belief is, that cold caught at late dinners and other late entertainments is a prolific source of disorders that prove fatal. With what a thrill of sorrow have we lately attended the funerals of aged and estimable persons who gave promise of living other ten or twenty years, but were said to have died after a three days' illness, in consequence of having one evening when they were out 'caught a little cold.'
It is tolerably evident that, setting aside the masses who die young and in middle life, from ailments that are difficult to be warded off, length of days is considerably dependent on individual effort as regards a graceful sacrifice to the rules of health. The explicit statement of Dr Farr, that the natural span of human life is a century, will to many appear startling. But calmly considered, a century is but a small fraction in the vast expanse of time. Years pass away imperceptibly. The man of seventy or eighty can hardly realise that so many years have slipped over his head. In his own condition he feels little to impress him with the fact. The past has vanished like a dream. The evidence of advanced years consists mainly in the recollection of events, recollection of places visited, recollection of the friends and acquaintances we have lost. The past is a vista strewed with memories, some agreeable, others saddening. We have worked our way as it were into a new world, yet with everything going on very much as it did long ago, plus a happy diminution in the number of Torturations.
The estimate formed of age ought not properly to depend on years. One man at seventy may be in constitution not older than another at forty-five or fifty. All depends on the original strength of frame, and the way it has been treated. Hence are seen lively old men, who, from their manners and activity, you would say were like men of thirty. The bloom on their cheeks, their tasteful toilet, their dancing, their singing, are a kind of marvel. The explanation of the phenomenon is, that besides having been careful as regards temperate habits and attention to air and exercise, they have all along cultivated a cheerful view of human affairs. 'A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but grief drieth the bones.' They have studied that text to some practical purpose. At fifty, at sixty, at seventy, they have been steadily qualifying for a hundred, and it seems not unlikely (if kept free from worry) that they will reach that desirable epoch – at all events, under a moderate discount of ten per cent., they may get as far as ninety, and on the morning after their decease have something handsomely said of them in the newspapers.
Keeping steadily in view Dr Farr's comforting view of the matter, we shall be glad if anything we have cheerfully ventured to suggest, has led people to reflect that with a reasonable degree of care they may have themselves to blame if they do not 'Live to a Hundred.'
THE LAST OF THE HADDONS
As I had expected, the neighbourhood through which we were driven did not appear to be inhabited by the most prosperous class of people. We presently found ourselves in Green Street; and when the cabman drew up before a retail shoemaker's shop, we saw at once that there could be no doubt about its being