The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1902-06-29
CHANCES OF LONG LIFE.
We Should Fear the Fear of Death,
Not Death Itself.

From the Literary Digest.
We should be afraid of the fear of
death-not of death itself. II we follow
this rule there is no reason why we
should not all become centenarians-so
we are told in the Revue d'Dconomie
Politique by M. Jean Finot This author
begins an article on the limitations OF
life by mentioning some traditional long
lives. Among these cases are those or
a resident of Goa, who is said to have
reached his 400th year in the enjoyment
of all his intellectual faculties Scotch
man who lived to be over 200 years old,
and various monks Of Mont Athos who
have reached $50 years. He asserts that
Servian statistics for 1897 show three
persons between 1876 and 140 years old.
eighteen from 1926 to 1876, 12S from 116 to
125 and 290 from 105 to 115. In 1890 there
were, he says, In the United States. 1881
persons over 100 years old and twenty
one in London. NJ Finot cites q mathe-
NAUTICAL formula, which he credits to DR..
Richardson, by which any one may get
an idea of his probable length of life. It
is only necessary to add the ages of ones
father and mother to those OF ones two
grandfathers and grandmothers, and the
total divided by six indicates the exact
VI ycdTb OIo bhOuiu hfcs AsAs
Finot does not believe that the average
length of human life has been reduced.
On the contrary. he believes that It 10
constantly increasing, owing to the pro-
press Of hygiene. Why do we grow old
at allf The writer answers:
For three reasons: a. Want Of physi-
cal exercise in the open air: o. poisoning
by microbes. which the phasocytea have
not succeeded in destroying; c) fear Of
death. It IL hard to imagine the import
anoe Of the last element. II q man fears
death It will carry him away. And yet II
Is quite pleasant to die; no sensation
could be compared to 1t.
To prove this assertion, M. Finot quotes
Helm, who relates the sensations he ex-
perienced while falling with his COM
panions from the summit of one of the
Alps to a death which he miracuously
escaped:
AT first a sense of beatitude. then
complete insensibility to touch and pain.
finally an extreme rapidity of thought
and of imagination, which In a few sec
onds enabled him to recolleot the events
of his whole life. Therefore, it is not
death we should fear, but the fear 1t
inspires in us. We are wrong, says So
crates, to fear death, as 1t Is our great
possession earth, and Seneca adds
that 1t Is the best of the inventions Of
life while Montesquieu concludes that we
should shed tears for men when they are
born and not when they die"
M. Henry de varigny examines the
question of longevity in ILLUSTRATION
from another point of view. He asks
Has the man Of today chance to live
longer than the man of 1000 years ago7
He bases his conclusions upon charts
and statistics published by Prof. Karl
Pearson in Biometrika and upon the re-
searches made by w. Spiegelberg, Of
Strassburg on the age of Egyptian
mummies These conclusions are that
an Egyptian who 1000 years ago lived to
be 68 years old was likely to live longer
than a modern Englishman of the same
age. M. de Varigny gives the following
explanations:
Evidently there was among the Egyp-
tians a natural selection. resulting from
environments, that does not take place
today. at least to the same degree,
among civilized people. The Egyptians
who reached the age of 6s years had ro-
bust constitutions, and therefore their
chances of longevity were exceptional.
Mortality was higher among the children
than the adults and there was a kind Of
selection by death. The many of today
Is not stronger; he Is possibly weaker.
But the majority of people live under
conditions more favorable to longevity,
because we know what conditions to pro-
mote. In other words. the greater ex-
pectation Of average life Is the result of
the progress Of sanitary science in the
fullest sense, and not the result of an
increase In vitality It is the conse-
quence Of the evolution Of mans INTEL
1ect rather than the evolution Of his
body"
For these reasons M. de varigny as
serts that although the chances of life
have increased for infancy, youth, and
the prime Of life, they have not in
creased for old age.