Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-09-12
People in Ancient and Modern Times
Who Have Lived Remarkably
Long Lives.
In These Times if Persons Are Careful
They Can Easily Live to Be
100.

1zatlon are most dltfuSed. The smallest OF
lowest average is where poverty, vice. anC
Ignorance reign.
The question of longevity presents the
greatest interest in relation to man
although the conditions and results arr
similar when applied to the animal anc
vegetable kingdom. According to the
scriptures, Enoch was 365 years old wher
he died Methuselah lived to the granC
old age of 965 years But the years as
then calculated may, have been of very
much less duration, or the longevity at
trlbuted to the patriarchs may have refer
ence to their respective families rather
than their Individual age. Be this as ii
may, 1t is certain that after the deluge
man 5 existence was gradually shortened
until the average came to that now gener-
ally accepted as the limit seventy years.
Shem was 800 years of age when he died
Abraham lived, however, only to It's years.
Isaac attained the age of $50. Jacob died
at l47 and Joseph at 10. All of these
latter ages, however, were reached thou
sands Of years after. Thomas Parr. an old
farm laborer in England, died in 1885,
after living 152 years and 9 months. He
married when he was 120 and lived with
his wife twelve years before she died. He
worked daily up to his 130th year, and saw
nine kings on the English throne. When
he died it was found that all his organs
were in healthy condition; that the ossi-
fication of the cartilages, usually found in
! aged persons, was not apparent, and that
death had resulted from plethora. 1t was
said that had Parr remained at his own fire.
side instead of going to London at the
Kings command he might have lived
many years more
Mary Patten is said to have lived to the
age of 137, the countess of Desmond to AS,
| Thomas Damme, 154; John Rovin, 172, and
Peter Torton to the age of 185. All of
| these people, however, lived to an age when
pute events; when no chronological records
were kept, and when it was the habit to
fix dates by comparing them in the mem
DRY with other things supposed to have
happened at the same time Thus the
sources of fallacy were many, although the
narrators believed their statement to be
true. The late George Cornwall Lewis
tried to prove that all of these narrators
like those mentioned in holy writ, were
inaccurate, but subsequent cases have
shown that many people have attained to
an age Of more than a century. In these
cases the age has been established by
written records and not by evidences of a
collateral kind nor on memory Scarcely
a month passes now but that the death of
one or more centenarians is reported, and
In nearl y every case the fact that the de-
ceased has lived to the age claimed is in
cOntrOvertible. Cases of longevity, it is
believed, will become more and more COM
mon now as a sufficient time from the be-
ginning of registering births goes on.
In support of this statement many facts
are gradually increasing the limit on life;
the period of life depends largely upon ex-
ternal conditions and the mortality records
bear evidence of an average increase of
in the expectation of life. At one time
the expectation of life to man of 20 was
given as 35 years. Now man of 80, it is
least. Due attention to the laws of nature
and the known requirements of health
in states and cities has much to do with
the average increase of human life, and in
no one way is it better proven than in the
marked and undeniable reduction of the
death rate in places where proper sanitary
and perfected Man is learning more and
more every day how to live, and although
the period of maturity or the time when
virility is attained can not be pushed for
ward perhaps, the evening of life and
the period of decay can be heightened
materially. There is no reason why man
of 40 or so, in the full enjoyment of his
faculties and in general good health, should
not live to the age of 100 years just as well
as to the MISREPRESENTATION limit, so
long as the individual physiological con-
ditions that determine longevity are OBJ
served With the rapid strides made in
science, the power of man to apply this
increase knowledge to the problem of
life, the limit of human life must in
crease.
Though accused of being fast hvers, of
burning lifes match at both ends the rec
ords show Americans to be among the long
est-lived people on the earth, and that the
average duration of life to-day is consider
ably greater than it was a century ago.
This is not to be wondered at, however, for
much of the work done in the olden time
bv hand is now performed by machinery,
with corresponding saving of vitality,
strength, and life to the worker. The
problem of sanitation and prevention has
in great measure been solved, and the use
and abuse of life's commodities is included
in the curriculum Of study In every school
throughout the land. The greatest condi-
ton governing longevity, viz, heredity, is
better understood, and the taints transmit
ted from generation to generation are be-
coming less and less every year, as the
germs of disease are killed In the present
age. Diseases once believed lncurable, and
which were looked for to manifest them
selves in posterity from birth, are now
radically cured, so that not only the one in
whom it first showed itself is relieved, but
his children and his children's children are
granted immunity from the transmission of
the disease.
That the average age of the human race
is increasing is an undeniable fact. The
statistics of America and of all other
countries indicate this increase and justify
the limit of 80 to IS years, with good
chance of 100. The records of death are
not quoted alone in support of this. but
the registry of births as well. Scarcely a
day passes but that the Tooth birthday of
some one is reported by the daily press.
Some time ago the newspapers printed
thirty-three death notices in one day. Of
these twenty-seven were over 20 years Of
age. seven were over 50, four were over 90,
and two had passed their Tooth year. Of
these thirty-three deaths Twenty-Five were
of women, nearly all of them widows. and
the preponderance of age was among them.
Though it is claimed and generally be-
heved that there are more boys born every
year than girls, statistics show that women
live longer, as a rule. than do men, and
this fact is used in support of the claim