New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-08-07
THE IMpRorEMENr OF HUmay urA1rn
From The Spectator.

We hope that some of the very able men who ara.
next month to attend the Medical Congress in Lon
ment in human health in a somewhat new way
We all know that whatever be the truth throughout
the world the expectation of life" that is the
chance of longevity, has, in the well-drained and
caretullyfed cities of the West increased 10 per
ceptibe degree; Il is indeed stated that IN London
lt has risen whole year within the last decade In
the absence of epdemics the death-rafe tends in
Such places distinctly 60 decline. till the difference
between the chance OF death in a healthy town
ana an unhealthy town sometimes amounts to a.
GEAR third. But we want to know accurately a
nttle more and that is the kind of life which is in
creasing whether il is yonng life or mature ife or
aged lie which is being enlarged. Are we Young
longer or mature longer, CT o a longerg Or in
fuller words, DO we gain from all our costly and
troublesome hygicnic devices longer period durin0
which retain the full energy of yonth or ion@eg
DURATION OF the period of wisdom-Such as wisdom
,,s-or q greater stretch of old aeef Do we live
longer longer IN TACT or are we only little slower in
uyingt Inc dlference rs very great and far as
we know, nothing in the way of Trustworthy data.
has ever been published on the subject.
we should ourselves say. with a very strong con-
Yiction that in England nearly the whole gam had
peen made between sixty and seventy that the num-
that is who became old lost their eysight or were
otherwise mpaired-was decidedly less, mat man
have been at the same age forty years ag1 That
Is curious fact if il is true; bnt its truth cannot
p1 proved by any individual, who may be accident
any deceived, or indeed. by any other evidence
IMAM by, a general concensus of specially ex-
who affirm that the real gai0 is after seventy: that
tne ola are distinctly stronger than they WERE that
ypu hunger expect as our fathers did kind of
mnmDllng and mbecile life at seventv-fye Who
sees now, except among the very poor who are
worn ont by labor insufficient diet the AGED
men," toothless, deaf. half bind and haf-imbecile
who used to swarm in the villages Men IL Is said
now keep their faculties til they die-wbich IL
true would be gain of which sanitary science
might well be proud. Is t true. however. outside
OF the picked lives from whom men take so many
false announcements or is this true which we
have also heard argued, that youth. the period Of
energy, is lingering longer with usi Men are moro
backward, we are told. and the maturity OF mind
formerly expected from twenty-five is now looked
ior only at thirty or even some years later. IL is
quite certain that there rs impression of this sort
abroad that In the professions and in Government
service men are held TO be boys longer than they
were, and that the boys have a more protracted
notion of their youthfulness. They hold
themselves at twentyone entitled to the immnnities
OF ladhood, and If they are beginning 20 be men at
twenty eight take no shame TO themselves as being
late or behIndhand. There is odd bit of evidence
upon mat slde too, upon which the present writer
unhapply for himself, is exceptionally compe-
tent witness. Noyelists are supposed 10 observe
closely and they have shifted the age of youth az
least live years backward. TIL Romeo is quite Young
II ne rs not more than thirty years old. Throughout
the whole literature of fiction, the heroes older,
thOugh the herOlnes have stood still. That NAV
have arisen from a mere change of manners hnt Il
may also be an unconscious result of careful obser.
walton.