That one may attain the age of one hundred years is no visionary or chimerical statement. According to physiological or natural law, the duration of man's life should be five times the period necessary to reach full growth. We see this law exemplified every day in the brute creation; but a centenarian among men is a rarity. Yet the very fact that there are men living in almost every community who have reached an age between ninety and one hundred years, only goes to prove the more that the natural age of man is one hundred years. Individuals reaching these ages live simply and naturally, as far as they know how.

Humanity educated to know how to live would always live to 100 years of age, barring accidents.

Age is not entirely a question of years. Cazalis long ago originated the oft repeated aphorism: "A man is as old as his arteries." Old arteries are usually hard and brittle, hence are short lived as is their possessor. The man of 75 years of age having elastic arteries is much younger, in comparison, than the man of 40 years of age who has lived the life of a rake.

It has been truly said that man, by his habits of living, kills himself by committing suicide - slow suicide. This is, unfortunately, only too true.

Metchnikoff expresses it as his belief that the natural term of life in these days to be about 130 to 140 years. Likewise he also gives it as his opinion that when man has lived out the full term of his natural life, that the instinct - what may be termed the natural instinct - of death asserts itself. On this basis is readily understood man's unwillingness to depart this life at any such premature age as 80 or 90 years.

Undoubtedly the natural duration of life varies, and cannot be expressed by a definite figure. In most cases it ought to be more than one hundred years, and only in rare cases ought it to be much less than that term. It is probable that the Biblical phrase "old and full of days," refers to the instinct of death, developed in well-preserved old men who had attained ages of from 140 to 180 years. This Biblical phrase is, evidently, not a common place phrase, because in the case of other celebrities as Jacob. Aaron, Ishmael and Moses, who died at the earlier age of 120 to 140 years, the phrase is not used, the time for the natural instinct of death not having asserted itself.

Men die because, in spite of their boasted reason, the majority have not sufficient judgment to regulate their lives. Very few, indeed, die of old age, as intended by nature. There is nothing in physiology or biology to show why man should not live or continue his existence for ever. Man, the head of the animal kingdom, lives fewer years proportionately than any of the inferior creatures. The reason may be stated in one simple word - excess. It may be either physical or mental, but the fact remains that excess is the foe of longevity. Men appear able to regulate everything but their own conduct. It is excessive indulgence of the appetites and passions that hurries the majority of men to the grave long before they have completed the allotted span. With good reason have the sages invariably preached moderation.

An interesting fact has been developed in connection with the study of the causes which produce old age, and that is the medicinal value of fermented milks - soured milk, koumiss, and buttermilk, in that they arrest or destroy the phagocytes or the microbes producing old age conditions. These soured milks are inimical to the microbes of putrefaction, and hence explain why lactic acid is so useful in maladies, diarrhoea, dysentery, etc., associated with putrefaction of the intestinal contents. This also explains the reputed medicinal value of buttermilk, amongst the laity.

As explained in the chapter on Old Age, fruit juices and fruits enjoy an equal reputation for destroying the microbes which are inimical to human life. The diet of old age should be simple and digestible, consisting of cereals, breads made of whole wheat flour, zweiback, fruits, particularly apples, grapes and pears, and fruit juices. Fresh bread, biscuits and all other indigestible food should never be used.

The question is often asked : What about Health Foods? The basis of all health foods is the same as that of bread - that is, wheat; with possibly a slight admixture of oats or barley. The majority of these foods may be likened to unleavened bread in composition. They are usually made from the grain by baking and special heating apparatus, without the use of yeast processes. They may be malted or unmalted.

The majority of health foods are commendable, and while not so economical as toasted bread, yet they afford considerable variety to our diet, as well as possessing many conveniences to those traveling. Health foods are best eaten in the dry form and not as mushes. Whole wheat bread, when properly toasted as in zweiback, either sliced or ground up, is not excelled by any of the other health foods.

We have already more kinds of food than we know what to do with. It is not a question of this or that particular kind of health food being adapted to our wants, so much as it is a live question that we learn to chew, and to use the foods we already have.

Strange as it may appear, it is none the less true though it has escaped general attention, that the Bible, essentially a book of morals, also teaches in an emphatic manner the principles of health quite as well. These principles are not laid down or itemized exactly in such and such a specified manner, as is the case in books specially written upon the art of living, but none the less, if one reads between the lines, in addition to what we may well infer from the lives, precepts and sayings of many of those who wrote its pages, notably the sayings of Christ and the writings of Paul, a complete Code of Health may be formulated, worthy of emulation by those who desire to live a life of health, even on its purely physical side, though, as has been repeatedly pointed out, the physical cannot be separated from the mental side of life. Whatever conduces to health of the body must conduce to mentality, equivalent to happiness, and happiness is heaven - earthly heaven at least.

The individual whose stomach is the seat of acidities, burnings, pains, gaseous disturbances and commotions in general, cannot be in any genial frame of mind; in fact he is suffering torture both of mind and body.

We are, in a measure, just what food makes us; happy and contented, or full of strifes, domestic broils, bickerings, ill-tempers, irritations and general unhap-piness. For this reason, if none other, it is politic to study and observe the laws regulating health.

A resume of the ideas and principles involved and expressed within the covers of this book, lead up to the construction of what may be summarized, condensed or crystallized into a universal health creed, a close adherence, or even an approach, to which will result in perfect health and happiness to every individual.