Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1873-07-17
How Occupation Affects Longevity.

| IL Is not SeucIdlly kuOWu, perhaps, as
yet, that with the spread of civilization
and culture, the average life of man is
| frightening, but such is the case, as is
conclusively proved by records which
have been kept for centuries in succession
in numerous places. Even now the re-
markably old persons are supposed to be-
long to the less cultivated classes, as for
instance, George Washington's nurses and
the like. But much of this rumored an
tiquity is probably due to an ignorance Of
the date OF birth, as complete as their ig-
norance of most other subjects Carefully
compiled statistics show that while, Of
course, the patriarchal longevity of Bibli-
cal days is out of reach, still the average
man of today, without emulating Methu-
saleh, modestly, after our modern fashion,
lives longer than the average man of any
of the past centuries of our civilization
in which vital statistics have been kept.
| Dividing occupations into the six very
general heads of agriculture, manufactur-
ing professional, commercial, scattering
and military, a recent work on longevity
gives an approximate idea of the length
of the average life in each of these call
ings. The farmer, it seems, lives the
longest of them all. In the first place,
with less care health is more easily pre-
served in the country than in the city,
owing to the greater purity of the air and
freedom of individual action, and again,
the work of the farmer is such as to de-
velop a healthy physical condition. I'm
der these circumstances it is said the
farmers have the longest life of any class
of men. A recent Massachusetts, report
| shows that the average life Of 1000
farmers was 65 years, being Is years
longer than that of professional men,
and % years longer than that of the
same number of merchants. Yet it must
be remembered that, in spite of the appar-
ent advantages of the farmers life, our
| records from year to year show that far
more of pauper insanity is found with
| them than any other class. This may be
| due to their more general poverty and ina
bility to provide for the needless. or it may
not
The manufacturing classes, shut up in
close shops with dust and other Impurities
in the air, and beginning work in these
places very young as apprentices, live but
comparatively short time. Outdoor
labor, when it does not involve too much
exposure to bad weather, is always more
| conducive to health than work in shops,
although in many cases this is the fault of
| the employers, who, at slight expense,
could often increase the health and so the
usefulness of their employees, by consult
ing some of the simplest laws of ventla-
ton. Working in constrained positions,
| as dressmakers, tailors, shoemakers and
others do, cuts down the average length of
life among them sadly. Blacksmiths are
very healthy, so are letter-carriers, whose
exercise is the best, as the most natural,
that can be taken. Butchers do not live
long, being poisoned by the exhalations
nj hn c1a rb "a
ing to an English table, have the shortest
| expectation of life of any out of twenty
| five different sorts of laborers. Persons
who work in temperature much above
that of the body are apt to suffer debility
| in consequence; as, for instance, bakers,
| cooks smelters of ores, operators in many
| parts of wooden mills, and many others.
Miners, of course, and such workmen have
| less than average lives
Judges, clergymen, lawyers, professors
| and physicians, taken as a class Of pro-
fessional men, live the next longest aver
age to farmers. The average Of all pro-
fessional lives is set at about fifty years;
judges average nearly sixty-six and one
half years; farmers about sixty-fivc years.
Among American clergymcn the Prcsby-
terians are said to live the longest Among
four hundred and six ministers of all de-
| nDUllfldJlOHS WHOSE ucdlDS WcIc IcCOTucu
in 1870 and 1871, in this country, one hun
drcd and fifty-thrce, or more than one
third were beyond seventy years of age.
LAWYERS and physicians are about at a
par Neither class, save the judges, who
have somewhat different work from the
| lawyers, is apt to live to any great age, but
! each averages well. Physicians are very
| apt to marry, and marriage tends directly
| to longevity.
Scientific men, as they are called, are
prone to long life, astronomers in particu-
| lar. Out of cighty-five Of these students,
less than one-quarter died under sixty
years of age There is notion that
''more distinguished" men live somewhat
shorter lives than the less distinguished Of
the same profession To a certain extent
figures corroborate this idea, but it is
greatly because few of the most distin-
guishcd die quite early, and SO reduce the
average somewhat. Many of the most
prominent men Ofall professions have lived
to bevcry old. Literary men shorten their
lives by lack of exercise, and a general
failure TO attend to the laws of health.
Artists are very apt to live long time.
A dictionary of twelve hundred artists
contains the names of more than eight
hundred who lived beyond fifty-nine
and Murillo seventy-two years old at
death. Musicians develop oftentimes with
astonishing precocity, and die correspond
ingly early as n general thing Blowing
upon wind instruments proves by figures
to be as harmful in practice as its appear
ance is agonizing; and the air of public
halls is generally so bad that all persons
who appear there habitually suffer from it.
Soldiers and sailors have hard lives; ten
soldiers die of disease where one dies in
battle, and the annual death-rate in our
army is about one in thirty eight soldiers,
and one in forty-two officers. Soldiers in
battle are in danger of being hit just in
proportion to the space they occupy, large
men being much more susceptible to bull
lets than little ones. Sailors, it is said,
average only about twelve years of life
after they begin to go to sea. Their work
is very dangerous and arduous. Trades
men do not come quite up to the average
in the length Of life. Clerks have many
unhealthy things to fight against, and are
weakened thereby for life. Merchants av-
ore 0a about fifty yearS and q half