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As recently as a century ago, when the average life expectancy throughout the Western world was less than forty years, people gave little thought to keeping fit. Life was simply not long enough. The few men and women who lived into their eighties and nineties were thought old souls of whom it was said that they were so mean nothing would kill them.

Today the picture has changed. On the one hand, science and medicine have combined to lessen the hazards to which we are exposed. Plagues have been wiped out. Anti-biotics and other miracle drugs are conquering diseases long considered incurable. Surgery is capable of life-saving magic. Our life expectancy has very nearly doubled and continues to rise.

On the other hand, we have acquired an entirely new set of problems. Even as the years of our lives stretch out longer, existence becomes infinitely more complex. By its very nature, twentieth century civilization makes this inevitable. The Atomic Age is hardly a relaxed age. We circle the globe in a matter of hours, we talk of trips to the moon as the reality of tomorrow - but we also know that tomorrow's wars, unless prevented, will be on a scale to wipe out continents.

On the personal level, our urban civilization brings with it tensions virtually unknown in our grandparents' time. We tend to live on the run, geared to split-second timing, to noise, to newscasts every hour on the hour, to phones jangling and cars honking, subway trains, deadlines and keeping up with the Joneses and seldom sufficient rest, relaxation or sleep. None of this is conducive to peace of mind. As for our physical conditions, as fast as the human body is enabled, through technical advances, to last longer, it falls prey to a new, totally different roster of ills.