San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-11-08
LONGEVITY OF MAN.
THE LIFE TERM OF THE RACE
SHOULD AVERAGE Sc YEARS.
The Cenealogy of the Patriarchs-Mon-
strous Hygienic Superstitions of the
Middle Ages-Keeping Disease at Bay.
A Hint to Brain Workers.
New York Srn


The biologist Bichat, whose institutions SO
marvelously anticipated the conclusions of a
later science, held that the normal longevity
of our race should be an average of ninety
six years, basing his inference on the fact
that the life term of all known mammals
exceeds at least six times the period of their
growth. dog, growing for three years,
may live to eighteen or twenty. A horse,
growing for four or five, aJtains, and often
exceeds, an age of thirty years. A camel,
growing twice as slowly, may live to forty
years and upward. An elephant, even in
captivity, does not attain its full growth be-
fore its fifteenth year, and in India often
outlives two masters Some of the larger
quadrumana. likewise, grow very slowly:
several varieties Of hab0on5. for instance, do
not acquire the characteristics of maturity
before the beginning .! their teens; and the
naturalist Brehm mentions male cacma
who, after becoming the patriarch of his
tribe, raded the durra fields of the Zulu vii
lagos for nearly thirty Years before he met
his Waterloo in fight with the outraged
natives.
The males of our own species grow for at
least sixteen years, but less th2a one-third
and hardly one in 300 the normal skiold
Attention has also TO be called 10 the circum-
stance that, whether the years Of Genesis
may have been soEl:' yea-s, noo2a or sea
sons, the genealogy Of the patrlarohs records
a steady decrease of longevity. since the
author Of that record can hardly bo supposed
to have used, within the same chapter, two
or three different units OF computation.
Besides, there is an a priOri probability
that the average duration Of our life term
must have been shortened by those three
billion tons of virulent stimulants, which,
according TO DIR. SchrodtS estimate, have
convulsed the viscera Of mankind since the
invention of alcoholic beverages, not to
mention narcotic drinks, tobacco made
dishes, premature marriages, indoor life,
sedentary occupations, high pressure schools,
sleepless nights, and all the fracas, fret and
factory smoke of modern city life. There is
no doubt that the average of longevity has
slightly increased since science has begun to
dispel the monstrous hygienic superStitions
of the middle ages, but it is equally certain
that those superstitiorS enormously decreased
the average life term of earlier generations
CONDUCIVE TO LONGEVITY.
Mental activity. under the stimulus of a
fierce competition, is not specially conducive
to length of life, yet a surprising number of
Grecian statesmen, poets and philosophers
We're octogenarians. The sun of the south
did not prevent the passionate, though die
tetically temperate, Saraoens of Bagdad and
Cordova from reaching an age which their
Trinitarian contemporaries often ascribed to
the Vaccinations of witchcraft Yet neither
the Greeks nor the Moriscoes were distin-
guished for the practice of the ascetic viz
tues They loved life for its own sake, and
saw nothing meritorious in gratuitous self
denialS
Physical exercise, out door sports absence
from toxic stimulants and premature incon-
Thence, frugality in the original sense that
implied prediction for mainly vegetable
diet, and the love of mirth and harmless
recreations, generally suffice to keep disease
at bay, though there is also deep signif-
canoe in Goethe's remark. that perfect health