The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1881-03-31

drank, though | suppose they must
have slipped occasionally. as everybody
did in those days. Doubtless even he
reditary headaches have an original
cause"
1t is an easy matter to blame our
parents for what they have handed
! down to us; but how many of US take
into consideration what wrongs we
may be inficting upon our own de-
scendants! Did the Downing Senator,
with his good-natured hilarity and
friendly tippling, suspect that he was
cursing his own descendants even to
the fifth generation? But if this is
the result Of so comparatively slight a
cause in one ancestor, what have we to
expect for those whose many ances-
tors have all or nearly all been drink
ink people?
.Those whose blood
Have crept through drunkards ever since the food,
As physiological fact, DR.. Rich
ardson tells US that it is not the blood,
but the nerves to which we are to look
for the transmission Of hereditary mis-
chief; that the blood is constantly
varying in its quality; but that any
serious injury done to a nervous GER
ter or trunk of nerve, central in
Jury as he calls it, is liable to show
its effect by producing hereditary dis
ease. It is a significant fact in con-
nection with this that alcohol is es-
pecially brain and nerve poison, and
hence especially obnoxious to this
charge. This poison directly affects
vitality by causing the failure of vital
processes, and is probably in this way
with other nerve poisons chargeable
with much of the shortening Of life
known as infantile mortality. This
is so common, and it has been so long
continued, that many have come to
accept it as an unavoidable popularity
Of the human race. It is not so with
other animals They seldom lose
their young. Aside from accident
and the interference Of the butchers
knife, the most Of them fill out their
organic term of life which is determ-
lned by certain well-established laws.
They live from five to ten times as
long as it takes them to arrive at ma
turity. For example, our barnyard
fowls arrive at maturity in about
year, and they live from five to ten
years. With the human race in their
present condition, this is not the case
Instead of living from five to ten
times as long as it takes them to ar
rive at maturity, the vast majority Of
them do not live to see maturity. 1t
is not long since the estimate was
made, and generally accepted, that
half our people die off before they are
five years old. In the latter part of
the last century in London one-half
Of all the children died before they
were three years old. Now that this
is not necessary, is not human pecu-
liarity I'VE can prove by the Friends, who
not only live temperate lives, but by
their strict intermarriage among them
selves, they have kept out the influx
Of outside poisoned blood, or shall we
say the influence of poisoned nerves?
At the date above referred to, one
half Of all those born in their commu-
nifty lived to be forty-eight years old.
Less than half century later colo
ny Of three hundred Quakers in Rhode
Island, during space Of five years,
lost not an individual under forty
seven years of age who was born IN
their community How does this COM
pare with the infant mortality which
so often desolates our homes? Who
knows the immunity from disease and
death to which we might attain in the
absence of these terrible nerve poi
sons!
It is said that the average extent Of
human life is rapidly increasing at the
present time in this country. Are we
wise enough to reflect that by this
time the temperance reformation has
had chance to make marked differ
ence in this respect? Certainly we
hear other causes credited with this
improvement far more frequently than
Temperance. A health officer in a
large English town declares that in
ten years time, by careful sanitary
regulations, and especially by decreas-
ing the amount of drink, he increased
the average longevity of the place ten
years. Again, early in the seven
!, teenth century the average extent of
human life in the city of Geneva was
only twenty-one years. In the best
} period of the Romish Empire the av-
: erage life Of the better classes was
. only thirty years. In some other ca
: ses the average has gone SO low that
the tribe or nation has actually died
out. We quote these cases only to
show that there is no fixed rule for
) human longevity unaffected by habits