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today Tuesday 31 March 2015

comment
analysis
No final solution to problem of life
and death, other than death itself

Life is better short

and full than
long and dismal

Photo: Reuters

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During his eulogy at the private funeral

service of Mr Lee Kuan Yew on Sunday,
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong spoke
about a speech that his late father had
made to a congress of cardiologists in
1972 about growing old and dying. It
was vintage Lee Kuan Yew thoughtful, erudite, elegant, but with a deeper
point, said the Prime Minister. The full
speech by MrLee Kuan Yew at the 5th
Asia Pacific Congress of Cardiology
delegates dinner at Shangri-La Hotel
in Singapore on Oct 13, 1972, which the
Prime Minister posted on his Facebook
page yesterday, is reproduced below:

r C h a i r m a n P r o fe s s o r
Charles Toh, Baron Professor Lequime, Sir Kempson
Maddox, distinguished specialists,
ladies and gentlemen, I am overawed
to find myself in the presence of so
many eminent heart specialists. Its
a daunting prospect to have to talk to
some 500 people who, even as I speak,
will run their professional eye up and
down me, checking my age against
my weight, height, the amount of alcohol I may be showing, either on my
countenance or lack of crispness in
myspeech.
The reason I am here, of course, is

There is
no point in
owning a
decrepit body,
with daily
deterioration
making it
ever more
expensive to
stay alive. But
you cannot
change the
human body.

that your chairman gives me an annual check-up to see whether the old
ticker is degenerating faster than it
should. Every year, we go through the
routine: Electrocardiogram (ECG) lying down, ECG sitting up, ECG after
going up and down steps at a certain
speed for several minutes, ECG to discover how quickly the pattern returns
to normal after this exercise.
Each time, I leave a little encouraged. He knows I am suspicious. So he
never tells me that all is well. His is the
subtle approach: A quiet nod, a hum
of satisfaction as he runs through the
stream of paper graphing my heartbeat and the very audible asides to my
general physician about an athletes
heart. It gladdens mine. He knows
that I read up all the medical articles
in magazines ostensibly meant for
more than just the average layman. He
knows I cut out saturated fat lean
meat, preferably beef, only selected
parts of mutton and pork, and that,
only occasionally. Even in vegetable
oils, some are to be avoided, like coconut, which is saturated.
Yet, despite all this hotchpotch
collection of dos and donts from
articles and tips from friends like
Continued on page 20