Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-05-09
MAN MAY LIVE LONGER
Will Be Ready to Die When
l40 Years Old
IN FULLNESS OF DAYS
REMARKABLE PROMISES OF A
FRENCH SCIENTIST.
Cytotoxic Serums to Ward Off Senile
Decay-Our Organic Dishar-
monies.
Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.


PARIS, April 80, 1903
AT last the Pasteur Institute has spoken
definitely of its cytotoxic serums. the best
known of which is that against "old age
that is to say, senile decay.
At last Prof. Ellie Metchnikoff has fixed
the minimum limit of mans natural life as
promised by it.
At last the fear and agony of death is
promised to be done away with for those
willing to live by the rules of a scientific
hygiene.
In an epoch marking book of what Prof
Metchnikoff describes as Optimistic philos-
ophy' and entities Studies in Mans Nat
ural History fear of death is promised
to become desire for death when man on
reaching his 10th year shall begin 10 feel
himself full of days
why do old men shrink from death!
asks the Pasteur Institute savant. Be-
cause they not full of days. sAbra.
ham, having lived 1T5 years, died In GOOD
old age, old man and full (of years or
days.. At the age of 100 Isaac gave UP the
ghost, being old and full of days JOB
lived 100 years after his trial and died, old,
and full of days.
THAT 1T is not a common formula Is
proved by the fact that the Old Testament
writers do not employ 1t when death oc-
Cured under the age of 40 years. Ishmael
lived 1877 years, lost his forces and simply
died; and the lack of the formula is par
ticularly significant in the case OF moses
and Aaron, cut off at 100 and 123, respect
lively, because they had trespassed at the
waters of Meribah-kadesh. Though MS
eye was not dim, nor his natural force
abated Moses was told to go up in the
mountain and die
What is this mysterious fullness or
days?' Prof. Metchnikoff declares 1t to
have been the now lost instinct Of DEATH,
which man ought to but has rarely attain
ed because of certain disharmonies of his
nature inherited from his first rational an
cestor, who was the freak child of an an
thropoid ape.
Mans Mistakes.
AT present man is all wrong-be1ng prin-
cipalIy the victim of his great intestine
This is the first thing 1 learned from Prof
Metchnikoff One day, ages ago, the an
thropoid ape gave birth to her extraordi-
nary child. By mere freak of nature
such as brought into existence the cal
culating boy Inaudi--his brain developed
abnormal powers. He had gifted children
and the race OF man began brusque-
ly, unprepared!
"a fine record for one monkey" I said.
Yes" says Prof. Metchnikof, but the
organic disharmonles, resulting from the
brusque change have made themselves the
more felt men have grown more inteln-
gent and sensitive
Many of these disharmonies cannot, from
man has hair on his iegs-a disharmony.
His disappearing and worse-than-useless
wisdom teeth cause f1uxions, phlegmons:
jaw-caries, tumors, even cancerous ana
meningitis from blood poisoning. Our ami
NAL ancestors needed these teeth TO mas
ticate their gross uncooked food.
The vermiform appendix (which we repro
duce exactly from the anthropold ape) IS
a mortal disharmony for whose useful ex-
istence we must go back to herb-eating
creatures like a rabbit-n whom 1t ful1lls
a notable function in the dlgestins OF "a"
vegetable matter. In man 1t is nothing
hut a death trap, one Paris hospital In
five wears having treated 443 cases of APP
pendicitis, excluding infants. more subject
to 1t than adults. 800
LAS for the great intestine Itself, de-
clares Prot Metchnikoff, man is It's uni
versaI victim in infancy, maturity and
still more in old age. From the digestive
noint of view it plays no role at all. Even
for the reabsorption of the products OF d.
gestion it's value is quite secondary.
why not cut 1t outE
at has been ablated again and again, and
the subjects not only lived. but enjoyed
great advantage. In mans herb-eating an
ces+ors las In the horse and cow the great
intestine swarming with It's microbes ca
pable of digesting cellulose, was essential.
In man it is a mortally dangerous waste
basket"
"HowT'
ut is a den of putrefaction; and consti-
patton causes a reabsorption of the poisons
elaborated by It's microbes-not to speak of
dySentery, the scourge of hot climates.
THE stomach l began
Superfuous Stomach.
1.-THE stomach is another organ We could
do well without. While not so utterly use
less and harmful as the great intestine (be-
cause it serves principally to digest albu-
menoids) it could yet be replaced for that
function by the small intestines. In numer-
Gus cases of the complete cutting out of
cancerous stomachs the patients survived
and digested their food with the small in
testines and the pancreas."
The whole system seems to be wrong?'
ut Is only natural that the digestive or
gans should furnish so many disharmonies,"
continued Prof Metchnikoff. Our animal
ancestors forced to live on roots, herbs.
uncuItivated vegetables and uncooked meat,
had organs adapted to their assimilation
Not having got rid of them, man must en-
dure them. So. to be healthy, man must
always be great eater of well-cooked veg
etableS, not so much for their nutrition as
to furnish his great intestine with the large
quantity of waste matter it requires
Then concentrated foods like beefsteak
pills. must be Utopian dream?''
at will be impossible for man to nourish
himself with foods that digest too easily
without leaving great deal of waste, be-
! cause the great intestine empties Itself only
with difficulty as 1t is
Here in the intestinal tube, itself the most
formidable physical disharmony, the great
moral disharmony of mans nature also has
it's rise. Unconscious of old age and death,
our ma mmal ancestors acquired the advan-
tages of a great intestine at the price of
longevity.
I'm the case Of man there Is no doubt"
says Prof Metchnikoh. Comparative study
of the facts fully confirms the hypothesis
that our abundant intestinal FORA useless
to digestion serves only to shorten our ex-
istence thanks to it's microbian poisons
which weaken our higher elements"
Cause of Senile Decay.
This brings us to the Pasteur Institutes
great discovery Of the cell commonwealth
of the human body and the plebeian revolt
| which In due course Of time brings on
senile decay before man has lived long
| enough to develop the instinct of DEATH"
| which Prof. Metchnikeff affirms to lie in a
potential form in the depths of human ma
ture.
Pathological old age-the wrong kind Of
old age-is distinguished by general hard
| ening," says the great psychologist. "An
old hen Is tough eating: and we properly
compare the tough meat of old animals to
sole leather, because the latter is composed
of conductive tissue-exactly the frame
work material which, in the sclerosis, or
hardening. of old age. comes more and
| more to take the place OF the cellular ele-
| ments which make the organ In the brain