It should become a study with those
who have the care of the aged to interest them in some useful pursuit,
and to convince them that they are in some measure actively contributing
to the general welfare. In the country and in families where the larger
part of the domestic labor is done without servants, it is very easy
to keep up an interest in domestic industrial employments. The tending
of a small garden in summer--the preparation of fuel and food, the
mending of household utensils--these and many other occupations of the
hands will keep alive activity and interest, in a man; while for women
there are still more varied resources. There is nothing that so soon
hastens decay and lends acerbity to age as giving up all business and
responsibility, and every mode possible should be devised to prevent
this result.
As age advances, all the bodily functions move more slowly, and
consequently the generation of animal heat, by the union of oxygen and
carbon in the capillaries, is in smaller proportion than in the midday
of life. For this reason some practices, safe for the vigorous, must
be relinquished by the aged; and one of these is the use of the cold
bath.
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