All are familiar with the records given in the Bible. Whether they are figurative or not it is hard to tell. However, so many cases of longevity are recorded that they in all probability have a basis in fact. The Hebrews of old must have been a long-lived people. One hundred and twenty years was not an extreme age. In Genesis is the record of many over five hundred years old, and a few over nine hundred years of age. At the time of the apostles the life span of the Hebrews had grown shorter and hence the dictum of three score years and ten. Between the time of Moses and that of the apostles the Hebrews had advanced--or shall we say degenerated?--from a semi-barbarous people to one that had the graces and also the vices of a higher civilization. The Hebrews of old were husbandmen, who lived simply and got their vigor from the soil.

The cause of so much unnecessary suffering and of the premature deaths has been discussed elsewhere in this book. In short, it is wrong living and wrong thinking. Impure air and bad food kill no more surely than does worry.

The bodies of children are composed largely of water. The structures are flexible and elastic. The bones are made up mostly of cartilaginous structure. As the children grow older more solids are deposited in the body and the proportion of solid matter to water grows greater. Lime is deposited in the bones. When they are limy throughout they are said to be ossified. After this process is complete no more growth can take place. Bone formation continues until about the age of twenty-five. At this age the body is efficient. The fluids circulate without obstruction. Could this condition be maintained, there would be no decay.

During the early years of life the food intake in proportion to the weight of the body is great. The child is active and uses much fuel to produce power and to repair the waste. Considerable food is required for body building. At this time a broken bone mends quickly and cuts heal in a short time. With advancing years come slowness and sluggishness of the various vital activities. The slowing up can be retarded almost indefinitely by proper care of the body.

If the circulation could be maintained and the purity of the blood stream guarded, old age would be warded off. A healthy body is able to cleanse itself under favorable conditions and so long as the body is clean through and through there is no opportunity for disease to take place and there can be no aging. By aging I mean not so much the number of years one has lived as the amount of hardening and degeneration of the body that take place.

Some are as old at forty as others are at seventy.

When people have reached physical maturity they should begin to reduce their food intake. There is no need for building material then. All that is necessary is enough to repair the waste and to keep up the temperature. The individual at twenty-seven should eat a little less than when he was twenty and by the age of thirty-five he should have reduced his food still more and made his meals very simple. Children enjoy the gratification of the sense of taste, but at the age of thirty-five a man has lived enough and experienced enough so that he should know that the overgratification of appetites is an evanescent and unprofitable pleasure, always costing more than it is worth. It is best to grow into good habits while young, for it is difficult to do so after one has grown old. The man who reforms after fifty is the exception.

Children are fond of cereal foods and sugars. They can eat these foods two or three times a day and thrive. A man of thirty-five should make it a general rule to limit his starch eating to once a day. Various physiologists say that as much as sixteen ounces of dry starch (equivalent to about thirty ounces of ordinary bread) are necessary each day. This is entirely too much. Very few people can profitably eat more than four ounces of dry starch a day, and for many this is too much. Through eating as much as is popularly and professionally advocated, early decay and death result.

The arteries are normally pliable and elastic. When too much food is taken, the system is unable to cleanse itself. Debris is left at various points. One of the favorite lodging places is in the coats of the arteries. After considerable deposits have been formed the arteries lose their elasticity. They become hard and unyielding. A normal radial artery can easily be compressed with one finger. Sometimes the radial artery becomes so hard that it is difficult to compress it with three fingers. As the arteries grow harder they become more brittle and sometimes they break, often a fatal accident.

This hardness of the arteries impedes the circulation, for the tone and natural elasticity of the vessel walls is one of the aids to a normal circulation.

So long as the arteries are normal all parts of the body are bathed in a constantly changing stream of blood. The muscles, the nerves, the bones, in fact all parts of the body, remove from the blood stream those elements that are necessary for repairing or building the various tissues. They also throw into the blood stream the refuse and waste due to the constant repair and combustion going on all over the body. The blood then leaves this refuse with the skin, lungs, kidneys and bowels, which throw it out of the body.