Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1886-02-25
LONGEVITY.
Conditions Favorable to the Enjoyment OF
Long and Healthy Life.

Conditions Favorable to the Enjoyment of
Long and Healthy Life.
Statistics are strange things; we can
not very we'll refuse to believe them, but
certainly ones reason hesitates some
times to accept the facts and figures they
present. For instance, when we read
ancient history, or even modern history
up to three hundred years ago, we are
not quite prepared to believe the statis-
tician to be correct, when he says that
the average of human life is greater now
than it ever was. 1t would seem to us
that civilization with its consequent lux
ury and Incidence. its improved-in
ability to acquire-facilities for pleasure,
and its enervating effects, would rather
shorten than prolong life, but figures,
which they say ''never lie, tell US diff
ferently. The ancients certainly knew
little of physic. and so far as can be
learned. diseases were by no means SO
numerous among them as among us.
1t may be that their physicians were
more skillful 1t is told of Esculapius,
that he was so successful in healing
the sick that Pluto complained to
Jupiter that because of it his kingdom,
hades, was not so populous as it should
be, and Jupiter made Esculapius sign a
contract to play into Pluto's hand. The
contract was perpetual and binding on
all physicians thereafter. Physic was
unknown in Rome for six hundred
years. 1t was then tested as to its viz
tues. 1t was CONDEMNED and banished
from the city at the suggestion of Cato,
the censor, who declared that he had
,oIt xxyifhnnt and
had never had it in his family; therefore
it was not wise nor necessary for people
to take medicine, nor to have medical
attendance. And as his motion was
carried, it looks as though he voiced the
sentiments of the majority.
Accepting the statistician's figures,
let us see what effect civilization has had
in prolonging life. The average OF
human life ten years ago was 50 years.
In ancient Rome, from tive hundred to
five hundred years before the birth OF
Christ, the average duration among the
wealthy classes was so years. In this
century the average of the same class OF
people Is SO years. In the sixteenth
century it was, / think, about PHI
years. Between 1914 and 1883 it was
40.68, and as many people now live to !
40 years old, as lived to be 43 years OF
age three hundred years ago.
In 1893 the British government Dor
rowed money by selling annuities on
lives from infancy upward, on the basis
of the average longevity. The treasury
received the price, and paid the annu-
tiles as long as the person lived, and the
contract was satisfactory to all con-
cerDed, and also profitable. In 1a9O
Mr. Pitt used another scale of annuities,
or the expectation of life as the previous
century, but it proved at that time to be
a costly loan for the government, for the
annuitants lived longer than their prede- |
cessors had lived. It was then investi-
gated and ascertained that while TO-
600 of each sex in the first tontine 1693) |
died under the age of %, only 5,772 |
males and 6,416 females died at that age
when the second tontine, or scale of an |
nuities, was made. The average length |
of life among the annuitants of 1893 |
was 25.5 years, and those of 1890 almost |
81 years. That is, in each case,
the party lived to be over 80 years |
of age. Now, as said above, the aver
age is 33 years One-fourth of the pop
u1ation die at or before the average, of
z years. Among 10000 persons lives |