Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1859-08-05
How LONG A MAN MAY LIvE.-Th

AlO VI LuUu3 1CS0AuCu uActOiAC OAy tudt
is, by referring to recorded instances
is estimated by Halter and Button at
from 80 to 100 years. Its extreme limit
still historically-as fixed by Halter
at not much less than two centuries,
Physiologically considered, it may be
measured from the time of growth.
Button, when he observed "that the
length Of the lives Of horses is, as in
every other species of animals, proper
tional to the duration Of their growth, y
propounded the true physiological prob
lem. The question is, to know how
many times the period Of growth is
comprised in the whole length Of an
animals life. All that Button wanted
to solve the difficulty was some certain
sign to mark the period of growth.
NJ. Flourins finds the indication le-
quirel in the union Of the bones with
their epiphysis (their heads, tops, OF
rounded extremitlcs, which fit into and
form the joints. AS long as the bones
are not solidly united with their epiph-
ysis, the creature grows; when they
are so united the animal ceases to grow
In man, the solidlication OF the
bones with their epiphysis takes place
at the age Of twenty. In the camel
it is effected at eight years in the
horse, at five; in the OK, at four; il
the lion, at four +; in the dog, at two
in the cat, at eighteen months in the
rabbit, at twelve months in the gum
ca pig, at seven months. Now mar
lives ninety and a hundl ed years, the
camel lives forty, the OK fifteen OF
tweLty, the horse twenty-five, the dog
ten or twelve, the cat nine or ten, the
rabbit Ell. hit, the guinea-pig six or sew
en-. The proportion, therefore, which
the period of growth bears to the length
Of life is as one to FIVE, >or very nearly
Man is twenty years growing, and he
lives FIVE times twenty, that is hun
dred years; the camel is eight years
in growing and lives five times eight
that is forty years the horse takes
FIVE years to attain his full growth, and
he lives five times five, and that is
twenty-five years, and so on with the
rest. IsE II
We have, therefore, precise indi.
cation which accurately marks the dura-
ton of the period of growth; the dura-
ton Of the period Of growth gives us
the duration Of the whole life. All the
phenomena of life are connected one
with another, by chain of successive
relations. The duration Of life is giver
by the duration Of growth the duration
of grow tn is given by that of CESSATION
the duration Of CESSATION by the height
of the stature. The taller the ANNA
is the longer is its CESSATION. The rab.
bit goes with young thirty days; the
elephant twenty months, or Whereabouts
We are ignorant Of the natural duration
of the elephants life; 1t has been diff
ferently stated at from 12O to SOC
years. A young elephant mentioned
in the Philadelphia Transcript dice
at the age of nearly thirty years, anc
Its epiphysis were not yet joined to the
bones. From this conclusion alone We
may safely conclude that the elephant
lives more than five times thirty, and
that is more than $50 years.
You've PEOPLE IN THE GYMNASIUM.
The Scaipel, an expositor Of the
claws of HEALTH" edited by Edward
Fl. Dixon, NJ. D., Of New York, has a
spicy article entitled Hypocrisy Of
Gymnastics" He says:
1t has filled US with horror to see a
proposal to add a gymnasium to every
public school in this city. A boy, un-
til he is fourteen, or even more, wants
no exercise besides the plays he gets up
with his associates in the open air; he
will exercise from his natural impulse,
and in the most rational and natural
manner, so you need only give him a
dry piece of ground, and place to
swim in, in the summer, and plenty Of
ice and snow in the winter, and then
leave him alone with his mates.
Boys from eight to twelve years Of
age, who work in the gymnasium reg
uIarly, "a bad habit) often develop
their muscles to hideously ugly de-
gree. Instead Of the soft, plump, jul
cy outline of youth, we have the skinny,
overworked, hard and dry outline of an
old man, induced by over exertion at
an age which does not demand violent
exercise Of any kind; besides, thus, We
think such processes are apt to retard
the growing Of boys and will untimely
destroy their carriage and figure when
they become men. Our readers may
have observed the same thing in the
dissected appearance of the legs of
some Of our juvenile dancers.
Excessive exercise, besides injuring
the mental faculties Of man, has the
tendency to injure the equal circulation
of his blood. A stupid clownish young
fellow, who had, for the last eight
months, undergone the most painful
and exhausting exercises Of the gym
nasium for five or six hours every day,
complained to me Of the smallness Of
his legs; on looking at him, l saw
what l afterwards discovered to be
prevalent among acrobats and members
Of the circus "a great falling off in
flesh from the knee downward and from
the elbows toward the fingers.
INTERVAL BETWEEN MEALs.-As a
general rule, from five to six hours
should elapse between meals, but this,