Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1875-07-15
Human Life Growing Longer.

THERE can be no mistake about it. Fig
ures don't lie unless it is an "obiectn for
them to commit that ethical impropriety-
which is not the case in the present in.
stance. Human life is certainly Iengthen-
ing. The number of ladies and gentle
men who live to see so years, 80,
100, increases from century to century.
We are swinging around the circle of lon-
gevity Who knows but we may bring
up presently at Gran'ther Methuselah?
The why and wherefore of this agree
able state of things are not far to seek.
Our revered ancestors were excellent peO-
pie in their way; in these centennial
years, especially, we are bound to think
and speak of them with ali filial respect
and tenderness. But how little they
knew of their own bodies; of the laws of
health of the nature and management of
epidemic diseases; of simple sanitary
precautions that are now as familiar as the
alphabet! What doses they swallowed,
and-must we say it?-hOw seldom they
bathed! Medical science has made nota-e
bic strides in the last 100 years. Dis
eases that quite perplexed and baffied the
doctors of the last century are now well
understood and easily controlled But
this is only part of the progress made.
With it has come, q diffusion of hygienic
information among the laity bearing
fruit in improved habits of living, in a
constantly-increasing reliance upon the
ounce of prevention as cheaper and more
effective than the pound of cure. There
is still plenty of room for improvement,
from the sanitary point Of view, in the
modern dwelling and in the modern city.
But compare them with the dwelling and
the city of the last century!
We said something about figures. Here
are a few from French medical journal:
The mean length of life at Rome. in the
higher classes from 800, to 200 B. G.. was
30 years; now in the corresponding classes
in the same city it is so years. In the
sixteenth century the mean at Geneva was
between 20 and 81 years; from 1914 to
1888 it varied from 40 to IS years; at pres
ent more Genevese arrive at 70 years than
arrived three centuries ago at 43. In the
year 1893 the English Government nego-
tiated loan to be repaid in annuities,
basing its calculations upon the average
duration of life at that time, and made
handsome thing of it. Pitt, in trying the
same method Of raising the wind, assumed
that the average duration of life had re-
manned the same and burned his fingers.
In the first of these tontines''-if that
is the proper name for them-about 10, 900
male subscribers and as many female died
at the age of e. III the second only
5,772 men died at that age and only 6,416
women. At the beginning of the last cen
fury, as appears from a report to Louis
FOurteenth's Project of the Seine, the
yearly death-rate in Paris was in 90; at
present it is 1 in Al. If the rate of Louis
Fourteenths time had been maintained,
there would now die in Paris, every. year,
II 42S persons. The actual total is be-
tween $4,000 and 10000 The medical
journal adds the interesting statement that
the average yearly number of edcatlls,in
France at the age of 100 years and upward
is at present 149. The computation GOV
ers the decade and half since 1850.
There are several respects in which we
might probably take lessons of our grand
fathers and grandmothers But we. seem
to have picked up few wrinkles in the
art OF living-using the word, to be. sure,
in It's lowest sense-which they somehow
missed.-SprinGiegd (lHass.) Republican,
~1@ $3.50 EsEss.a
The London Telegraph says of Mr.
Moody: Notwithstanding all the easy
talk about hysteria, epidemics, magnet
ism, nervous systems and the like, the
and divines have yet to ex-
plain, to US why it is bad thing for these
fankee itinerants to turn people by thou
sands to right and virtuous lives, and g
good thing when Bishop or Cardinal
to convert half dozen.n