River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1890-02-20
CONCERNING LONG LIFE.
Conditions which Lead to the Attainment
of Advanced Age.


Farmers, as usual, make a large pro-
portion, As per cent, of our list Out of
| 1000 old men in this country, noted by
DIR. c. NJ. Hammond. 461 were farmers,
and NEARLY all began life upon the
farm" AS three-fourths OF our popula-
ton and fully half our workers are on
| farms this proportion Is not as large as
il appears on the surface and indicates
that the chance of old age is really no
greater on the farm than anywhere else.
Out of the fifty-nine French centenarians
whose occupations were known twenty
two were farmers and eight landowners,
so that in France, while larger pro-
portion than here sprang from the land,
the proportion is still one-third less
than the three-fourths of the total in
habitants, which the land bears in
J France. The most distinguished OF
French centenarians, NJ. Chevreuil, who
died last year at one hundred and three,
had lived in Paris all his life. The
world over the chance both of death
and of birth seems less in the modern
city than in the country. In other
words both the birth rate and the death
rate are less in cities.
Special habits have little or nothing
to do with long life, and it will be found
as our list Of old men grows that fair
proportion use spirits and tobacco.
Early hours are the rule and a dinner
in the middle Of the day, - well as Off
spring, but these are SO universal in the
class from which old men and women
come that it is not easy to draw conclu-
/ he narafYI rnadfeal in
quiry made by Prof. Humphrey showed
that a little over the average height
and weight-for men 81 feet 81 inches
and 1Ss pounds, and for women feet 8
inches and 1919 pounds-was most favor
able to long life. 1t is familiar med
ical dictum that a man is ''as old as his
arteries" but there is little in such
facts as have been gathered to support it.
But the encouraging lesson in all such
facts and figures is the proof they offer
that the average of human life is length
ening and the years of health, activity
and comfort increasing. Old men and
women are far more common than they
once were. In England, from 1s3S-54 to
1ss1-s2, the death rate dropped from
o. per 1000 to 1875, and this stands for
an average duulIlOn OF TWO years 10 Jne
lives of men and three years and four
months to the lives of women. In this
country; which shares this advance,
this means that at the end OF thirty
years 4,0O0.000 more people, or a state
as large as Pennsylvania, will be
alive, who under the earlier death rate
would have been dead. In Sweden,
where longer comparison is possible,
the death rate in 1770-90 was 2S.5 per
1000; in 1896 it was IFS. The death
rate in London was once 20 per 1000; it
is now 16, Is, and sven H. The death
rate here is far higher-22.5. This
enormous addition has changed life
after sixty or sevety from the lean and
slippered pantaloon" of Shakespeare to
hale, vigorous and hearty years, in
which life is enjoyed to the utmost. II
the question is often asked what civili-
cation has really done to increase hui
man happiness, We can unhesitatingly
point to the green old age which we
chronicle this morning-every man and
woman proof of an advance we all share
in a larger or less degree.-Philadelph
PreSs-