The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-09-19
WOULD YOU LIVE FoREvERs

WOULD YOU LIVE FOREVER:
An article appeared in one of the
blanket-sheet Sunday issues of Chi
cago paper presenting the opinions Of
Tesla and Virchow on which was
based a contention that, instead of
human life being matter of few
score years at the longest, and the
average duration around a third of
century, it is possible that conditions
may be created when old Methuse-
labs record will be broken and life
may be prolonged indefinitely. That
progress has been made in producing
hygienic conditions that have pro-
longed the average duration of life is
we'll known. A large portion of the
profits of life insurance companies
comes from the use of mortuary ia
bles based on a much shorter average
than the actual The period of thirty
three years has heightened out to
about thirty-eight, but premium
charges are still based on the former
estimate. Mankind in all civilized
countries are better clothed, fed and
sheltered than they were two or three
generations ago, and these are essen
tial factors in the preservation of the
machine whose collapse we call death.
Mr.. Tesla is quite positive that
Roentgen's accidental discovery of the
X rays, and the subsequent conquest
of them by the Horoscope, with the
generation of ozone by hight frequency
currents of electricity, will lead to the
control of the various microbes whose
province now is to gain access to the
human body and install disease. When
this is accomplished and mankind is
duly instructed in those laws of health
whose observance fortifies the body
against attacks of bacilli, then, with
one other stipulation, life may be in
definitely prolonged, and even that
happy death from mere old age be
abolished. The one other condition
imposed by the noted electrician is
the legal intermarriage of only such
as are physically perfect, down to the
smallest detail of tissue blood and
bone" VirchoW is quoted as support
ing this condition when he says that,
the origin of life being life, eff the life
that is taken from life is taken from
highly developed life, so will be the
life that is taken" On this founda-
bn
argument for the, creation of a race
which shall live forever by the restric-
ton of marriages to those who shah
pass a legal examination that shah
attest their physical fitness to become
the givers of other lives
This is no new notion. Out Of Ober-
lin, when 1t was the storm center of
all the isms, there went over forty
! years ago a professor preaching this
method of regeneration Of the race
and he narrowly escaped being
mobbed by indignant citizens who
8 came to hear and learn new lessons
2 in life and life saving. But the diff
Guilty Mr.. Tesla will meet in securing
the adoption of his plan of marriage
by scientific instead of natural selec-
ton will be not alone the immense ma
jority who will form the army of the
rejected and will have convictions on
the subject of marriage which they
will not surrender to even a Republi-
can congress or a socialistic legisla-
ture He will have to meet in con-
test a very stubborn and insistent ma
ture which is working out, in her own
way, with infinite patience, the same
problem whose solution Mr.. Tesla
would reach with a hop, skip and
jump. In furtherance of her work,
she has wisely provided binder for
human reason and judgment that she
claps on at the opportune moment when
John and Jane meet and revolye that
pair of visual diaphragms' Holmes
mentions, and proceed to swallow
vows and promises without the slight
est question If eating words won't COM
promise the organs of digestion" But
more than that she has so arranged
matters that while the friendly reia-
tions Of mankind are based upon their
simiiaritiss. the marriage relations are
based upon opposite traits, mental as
wei as physical. The tall man is
drawn to the understood girl; the stout
girl finds her ideal in the slender
STRIPPING; the intellectual woman is
attracted to the dull-witted man. and