Recently, the news of the retirement of Hou Hsiao-hsien, a representative of Taiwan's famous New Wave film and a famous director, due to dementia, that is, Alzheimer's disease, has attracted widespread attention. I'm a screenwriter with a background in filmmaking, and this news reminds me of watching "City of Sadness" when I was in film school. In all fields, the retirement or death of a master represents the end of an era. And Director Hou's retirement may mean the end of the era of Taiwanese film masters.
After being sad for a while, I began to update today's commentary on "The Legend of Zhen Huan", and suddenly a thought flashed into my mind: Why in history, especially among ancient emperors, we rarely hear of people suffering from this disease?
For example, Yongzheng, the protagonist of the TV series "The Legend of Zhen Huan", suddenly died in the Old Summer Palace one day in August 1735 in history at the age of 58. If it is simply understood that the old people of that era often do not live to the age when Alzheimer's disease will occur, Yongzheng's son Qianlong died at the age of 89, which can be regarded as a standard long life. But there is not a single word about Qianlong being confused to death in the official history and the wild history. Why is that?
First of all, most likely, medicine was underdeveloped in ancient times, and many diseases did not have clear diagnostic criteria. Even though the emperor had symptoms such as memory loss and impaired judgment, he had already abdicated and became the emperor, and he did not have to see the courtiers every day. Because it is not in the center of the stage, even those emperors with brilliant achievements in history, after becoming the emperor, have not been recorded too much. Sometimes I think about it, isn't this the ancient version of "people go to tea and cool"!
Secondly, the lifestyle and eating habits of ancient times were very different from those of modern times. The diet of the ancient emperors was very healthy, and the food they ate was mostly natural and free of chemical additives, which helped to keep the brain healthy. In addition, ancient emperors often participated in various court activities, such as hunting, calligraphy, music, etc., which exercised the brain and strengthened memory.
In addition to these, we can see from the daily life of the emperors of all dynasties that the position of emperor can be said to be the most volatile intellectual worker in ancient times. They got up at three or four o'clock in the morning and began to deal with the mountain of twists and turns, and the diligent emperor was still working on official documents even in the middle of the night. According to this mental exercise ability, the emperor's brain is being exercised all the time, so the probability of a bad brain is relatively low.
Finally, there was an "unspoken rule" among ancient emperors - not to mention that the previous emperor was not good. The reasons here are also interesting. First, most of the emperors of the same dynasty are father and son, and protecting the face of the previous emperor is to protect his own face. And for the emperor after the change of dynasty, basically he will also maintain a certain amount of respect for the emperor of the previous dynasty, because you can't guarantee that your dynasty will be once and for all, and most emperors hope that the emperor who will succeed their dynasty in the future will not discredit themselves, so this unspoken rule has been established.
So in general, there are many reasons why ancient emperors did not have Alzheimer's disease, including lifestyle, eating habits, and ruling styles.
Of course, this is just our speculation, and the main reason is that at that time, people did not regard memory loss in the elderly as a disease, but as the result of natural aging.
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