Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1892-01-23
COMPARATIVE VITALITY.
The Great and Mysterious Problem VIII,
Some Live Longer Than Others.

The Great and Mysterious Problem Why
Some Live Longer Than Others.
From the LondonSpectator.
There arc families. beyond doubt. as we'll as
individuals, over whom disease seems to have
no power, who are either exempt from illness
or survive 1t as If it we're but an emotion, who,
apart from accident, always fulfill the years Of
the psalmist, and usually die only because the
still unbroken machine has exhausted its
stock OF motive power. Doctors, when called
In to such persons, are always cheerful, assure
the friends that there will be rally soon, and
would like, if they dared for the credit of their
craft, to administer as little medicine as posi-
BILE. They have not an idea as to the reason,
unless it be hereditary predisposition," or, in
few cases, cheerful temperament; but they
know quite well that in such patients there is
''recuperative power" and as they like cures
partly out of kindness and partly from self
interest, they are well content. And there are
also families, as well as individuals, in whom
the life lies low, about whose attacks, how
ever slight they may appear. the doctors
always shake their heads. and of whom, when
among themselves they will remark: The
Blanks have constitutional habit of dying"
Such people rarely live to be more than
middle aged; they never attain old age, and
when they die they die Unexpectedly, most
frequently in the first stage of convalescence
from what is called a relapse" Something is
wanting ill them which furnishes their rivals
with staying power, but then. what is the
something? 1t certainly is not size, for giants
die rather rapidly, and the men who are dear
to insurance societies are usually of the
medium build or even little under it, their
weight in particular being for the most part
slightly below average. Fatness is weakness
more or less. And 1t Is certainly also not iden-
tical with physical strength, for athletes are
haya fba
whole, if we deduct their mortality from child
bearing, more vitality than men, and very fee
BILE men, in the athletic sense, constantly at
tend the funerals of far stronger juniors. Nor
does the quality of vitality arise from any
superior strength of brain.
The able often live long and often die young
The great lawyers and theologians, men of alb
normal acuteness often reach vast age, as do
gamekeepers and country clergymen. with
neither of whom is the brain very active or
often fatigued. The greatest living poet is as
old and as healthy as Mr.. Gladstone. and the
last centenarian recorded. or last but one was
a sort Of respectable female tramp. Sir Moses
Montefiore, who died at l0I, was a most acute
minded man, and SO was Henry Martyr, the
senior wrangier who turned missionary and
after a life OF travel not unlike that of Sir
Moses died of exhaustion just seventy years
younger.
There is a fancy abroad among the cultivated
that very stupid men do not reach great age
but II they ask few masters of work houses
and the managers of the great charities they
would find that is an error. Nor can the quail
ity be accurately traced to any conditions or
method of life. The very old are often in
tensely yivacious, but they are often also very
dull, occasionally almost imbecile The rich,
according to modern theories, ought to possess
the highest vitality; but as a matter of fact it
belongs, taking all the world, to negroes who
were slaves in the West India Islands. and in
England to gamekeepers and excessively poor
women.
The only facts We certainly know about
habits conducive to vitality are that free
dom from anxiety is favorable to il. probably
by conserving the pumping power of the
heart and that 1t Is i'll n rather sins uar degree
hereditary, the capacity of living surviving in
many families the most violent changes in the
habits of each generation. even the most yio-
lent changes in residential climates Those
who cling to life intensely often die early.
while the Indifferent live on till death seems
to have finished that furrow and yet passed
them by.
No; vitality is not synonymous with strength
of will. though it must be- on the evidence. a
non-material quality. 1t 10 more like sRift"
than anything else, like that strangest OF all
capacities. the feeling for music, which must
be IN a measure spiritual. yet has absolutely
no relation to mental force, being as often
wanting in the ablest as in the stupidest of
mankind. What is the source of the gift we
none OF us know, and probably never shall, for
we cannot hope to accumulate more experi-
ence than the great physicians have done, and
they frankly confess that In every patient there
is some quality making for death or survival
that they can only recognize, without pretend
ing to understand it.