Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1890-02-06
CONCERNING LONG LIFE.
Conditions Which Lead to the AttainmeI
of Advanced Age.

Conditions Which Lead to the Attainment
of Advanced Age.
Farmers, as usual, make a large pro-
portion, 45 per cent, of our list. Out of
1000 old men in this country. noted by
DR.. c. NJ. Hammond. 46I 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
1t 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 tifty-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 CT the total in
habitants, WHICH the land bears in
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 deaf
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 a fair
proportion use spirits and tobacco.
Early hours are the rule and dinner
in the middle of the day, a. 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-
slonS. The very careful medical in
quiry made by Prof. Humphrey showed
that little over the average height
and welght-for men 81 feet 81 inches
and 13S pounds, and for women feet 8
inches and 129 poundS-was most favor
able to long life. 1t is familiar med
zeal dictum that man is las 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 comfor7 increasing. Old men and
women ar far more common than they
once were. In England, from 1851 to
1SS1-S2, the death rate dropped from
-. per Loco to 1913, and this stands for
an average addition OF two years to the
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 1000, GOO more people, or Il state
as large as Pennsylvania, will be
alive, who under the earlier death IA tie
would have been dead. In Sweden,
where longer comparison is possible,
the death rate in 1110-9O was 2S.5 per
1000: in 1SSO-5 it was 11.5. The death
rate in London was once 20 per 1000; it
is now 16, Is, and even Is. 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 If
the question is often asked what civili-
cation has really done to increase hui
man happiness. we can unhcSitatingly
point to the green old age which we
chronicle this morning-every man and
woman proof of an advance we all share
in larger or less degree.-Philadelphi
Press