Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1860-02-06
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COMPARATIVE MORTALITY OF THE SExEs-
In the Eastern parts Of the United States, and
particularly i'll New England, the statistics
show that the number OF females is greater than
the numOer Of males. The large migration
westward of young and grown up men, is the
commonly received explanation Of this ineoual-
y. But this, we think, is only one cause, and
mother is that the mortality of males is con-
slderably III excess of that Of females.
Why is it that male children should have
fewer chances OF life, is serious question and
perhaps will have to rest, for the present with
other unSoived mysteries. With respect TO
adults, it may be conceived that accidents, cas-
ualitieS OF one kind and another, and bad hab.
s,to which women are not so much exposed as
men, may account for the excess OF DEATH
But children under ten do not destroy them
selves by dissipation. Up to that age they re-
main innocent of rum and tobacco, and indulge
in no enervating vices. The tragility of Am
erican women has been developed, both at
home and abroad Compared with the wo-
men of Europe, they are deficient in bone and
muscle; many of them, from the lack Of a
proper welding of soul and body during tile
= periOd'of growth, perish like leaves in autumn,
nevertheless, our men manage, in some unac-
countablo way, to drop off even faster than the
women.
In the labor of teachers and phlanthropists
to disseminate knowledge of correct living
OF arranging our habits as to secure our
health, and longliverty, and the greater amount
OF instruction, an appeal has been made to wo-
men, because their necessities were supposed
to be greater. Reform in dress, air, exercise,
less mental excitement and more bodily activ-
1ty at work or play, have been prescribed for
them. All this is well. But from the facts at
which we have glanced, it would appear that
men are III no less need OF knowledge and
proper application of the laws of life indeed,
their necessity is more urgent, for, notwith-
standing all their advantages OF outdoor life
and physical Development they are, on the
whole living less in accordance with vital prin-
cipals.
The greater average size of male children at
birth may account, in part, for the greater NOR
tally al that period. More than that, our city
boys see to inherit a percocious nervous devel-
opment, not so marked in girls, which may
operate against them before birth, at birth, and
after birth and is on y, if ever, overcome by a
training particularly favorable to physical har-
dihood. But how are we to account for the fact
that mortality with boys under ten is greater
than with girls The boys clearly have the
advantage in strength and stamina-why
should they die most rapidly The nervous
precocity already spoken Of may have some
to do with 1t, but this cannot be all. Girls it
is true, are more watchfully cared tor and
shielded in the house, while boys expose them
selves to all sorts of weather; yet this expos
ure, if habitual, and with proper safeguards Of
clothing, should only increase the tenacily of
their hold on lie. The lack of it is an ac-
knowledged deficiency in the training of girls
Many people, indeed, in mistaken tender
ness, make house plants of both their boys
and girls, and train them so delicately that the
slightest exposure is liable to dismiss them to
another home. AS neither boys nor girls can
60 through life without exposure, it IS clear
that they should be so hardly brought up as
to enable them to meet it without fatal results.
Child or adult who cannot reach this point has
no very secure hold on fe and is Liable to be
blown away by the first stirring breeze he
meets. But that the adult man should die
prematurely is not so difficult of explanation.
The reasons, in truth, are so obvious that he
that runs may read. Among these are eating,
drinking, and yielding to enjoymcnts In eX-
cess-wlne, tobacco, gluttony at table, and Ii
centiousness Other reasons, however, are
not so obvious. Temperate men also die
With these, the common destroyer is proba.
bly, undue nervous eXctement-brain-wor in
disproportion to hand work. The mercantile
and specializing classes lawyers, doctors, clcI
gymen, editors and literary men generally and
many mechanics, suffer and die from this
cause. Ten twelve sixteen hours of head
work, to one or little more Of air and half ex-
ercise-exercise of the legs Who can expect
to preserve health under such a System
Walking is not exercise, in its full sense, and
has no business to pass for it. The grand, vi
tai organs are in the chest, and cannot be fully
aroused, brought up their capacity, and thus
energiZed, without the action of the arms.
Work or play, with the hands, sufficient to
fully open tile chest and call into complete ac-
tivity all the parts and functions within, daily
repeated, is indispensable to bealth--to the
maintaining OF the balance between muscle and
nerve, body and brain.