Meade County news. [volume] (Meade, Kan.) 1900-1918, 1900-09-27
JEWS LoNG-LIvED.
Indoor Occupations and Temperate Lives
Favor the Race.


Favor the Race.
From time immemorial physical Wig
Or has been considered sine qua non
to longevity. The races that distin-
guished themselves in the history of
the world for their aggressiveness,
their physical prowess and valor have
in the main been people Injured to hard
manual labor, out-of-door exercise
and active modes of living. The
Greeks of old were as assiduous in
their devotion to their sports and
games as the Englishman of today is
to his national pastimes of cricket and
racing or the German to his fencing.
The Teuton of the nineteenth century
in physical development surpasses all
other races and rules the world. He is
on the whole a long-lived race. He
works with his hands, with his body,
with his legs, and with his brain; in
fact, he works altogether. He is not
apt to stunt one portion of his physi-
cal makeup to aid in developing an
other portion. In his normal condi-
ton he is country dweller and des-
pises the town. In contradistinction
to the Teuton, let us consider the Jew,
and we speak now of the masses.
Physically, he is poorly developed,
says a writer in the Family Doctor.
Centuries of oppression have stamped
out his physical vigor, if not his vi
tally. The European Jew is under
sized and markedly so. His mental
vigor, however, is unimpaired and
-
his neighbours. He is a city dweller
and betrays an inherent dislike for
hard manual labor or for physical ex-
ercise or exertion in any form. He is
averse to out-of-door sport. He pre-
fers to live by his brain rather than by
his muscle. His chest capacity is linn
tied and he possesses many other fea-
lures of physical degeneracy. In fact,
his physical makeup is what one
would expect to find in a short-lived
man. And here is surprising fea-
ture. Possessing so few of the ele-
ments SO long considered as necessary
to longevity, the Jew is probably the
longest lived of any race of people now
in existence. His tenacity of life is
remarkable. In spite of the social con-
ditions which surround the mass of
the Hebrew population the world over
and especially in the large cities Of
America, where they form a large per-
centage of the population, the death
rate among the Jewish inhabitants is
but little over half of that of the aver
age American population. Prof. Will
liam Ripley, in his papers on the ra-
cial geography of Europe in the Popu-
| lar Science Monthly, discusses this
question very ably and very fully. He
states that If two groups of 100 infants
each, one Jewish, and one of average
American parentage, be born upon the
| same day, one-half the Americans will
die within forty-ssven years, while the
| first half of the Jews will not succumb
to disease before the expiration of
seventy-one years. According to Lom-
hroso, of 1000 Jews born, PIT die be-
| fore the age OF seven years, while
453 Christians, more than twice as
many, are likely to die within the
same period.
The immunity of the Jewish popu-
iation from accident on account OF
their indoor occupation will account
| for some of the discrepancy, but on
this very account they should be more
liable to epidemic and other disease.
| This is not wholly true, however. They
show an abnormally small proportion
of deaths from consumption and pneu-
monia, which are responsible for the
largest proportion of deaths among
the American population. Prof. Rip
ley ascribes their immunity for this.
as well as from some other diseases.
to the excellent system Of meat in
spection prescribed by the Mosaic law.
Hoffman says that in London as much
as one-third the meats offered for sale
is rejected as unfit for consumption by
the Jews. Probably the temperate
habits for which the Jews as a race
are noted will account to some extent
for the longevity. The Jew is temper
ate in almost all he does in all that he
eats and in all that he drinks. He is
seldom addicted to the Incorporate
use of alcoholic liquors. He abstains
| from certain varieties of meat and
those of the richer and more heating
| kind.