The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1903-02-26
WONDERFUL OLD FOLnS
MENTIONED LAST YEAR
Jhr!y-fiVs Hundred Persons tho United States Who
Passed the Hundred Year Limit in 1902 Average
Expectancy of Life Increasing Everywhere =. :.

7 T is noteworthy how many person

7 T is noteworthy how many persons
near or past the century marx
figured in the history Of last year.
- We often hear that this Is the
'oung mans age, and this is largely
rue in the business world, but 1t is
llso an age of old people. Much as
he youngsters would like to have the
I'D fellows 60 to the rear and take a
comfortable seat on Easy street, the
act remains that at 10 tine in the
history of man has the influence and
lie activity of the veterans been more
potent M the affairs of the world.
There are about $500 persons over
100 years of age in the United States.
The average expectancy of life is in
.reasing all over the world. 1t Is es-
:imated that the prolongation of life
1as gained twenty-five per cent. in the
asst fifty years. The list OF centenar-
ans is growing longer with each sue
,eeling year. 1t is curious fact. TOO.
hat for every man who has reached
:hc age of 100 there are two women.
Statistics of most countries confirm
his statement.
1t used to be said that forty was "the
Did age of youth and that fifty was
the youth of old age" Charles I.
Yerkes. in recent London interview,
said that a man was not really ripe for
business until he was fifty, being with
few exceptions merely an apprentice
before that age. Henry Clews lately
said he knew many men who had
achieved their greatest success after
they were sixty. Everybody knows
that Michael Aagelo, Titan. yoltaire,
Franklin, Newton. Lord Brougham,
Palmerston, Kent. Goethe. Gladstone,
Bismarck and others performed great
things even after they were eighty
years old. In fact, there are theorists
to-day who assert that the man who
dies at 100 dies century too young.
woULD pEoLoNa LIFE.
Low to extend the span of life in
denitely is the problem TO which many
seem to set themselves nowadays. Sci
antlsts and doctors promise almost un-
limited age to coming generations. Pro-
fessor Jacques Loeb and others are
working on experiments which have
for their objects the production of life
without father-pathenogen
the arrest of death in germs. Pasteur
Institute eXperimenters are trying to
prolong human existence indefinitely
by checking the advance of death on
the Threshold. in the cells themselves.
:hus arresting senile decrepitude by the
use OF n specific serum for the blood,
instead of attempting to combat ex-
ternal disease.
But let us turn to some of the inter-
esting old people of last year. The old
est practicing physician in the United
States, and probably the oldest in the
world, is DR.. ]. p. Wood, of Coffey-
vile, Kan, who celebrated his Tooth
birthday early in 1902. He was born
in Dublin on January 4, 1902, and be-
gan practicing at the age of twenty
two.
But" he always adds. IN telling
about II, II have done mighty little
practicing on myself"
He served as a surgeon in General
Taylor'S army in the Mexican War.
DR.. Wood attributes his long life and
sustained yigor to the fact that he has
always lived plainly and temperately.
indulging IN no eycesses and stunning
liquor and tobacco rs he would dead
ly poison. AS student in Transyl-
vania Medical College he joined a CO.
terie of classmates who had pledged
themselves to this manner Of living.
All but one of the parties to this COM
pact lived to be over seventy-five, five
lived to be over eighty, one became q
nonagenarian, while DR.. Wood, the
solo survivor. snow in his 101st year.
A REMARKABLE MAN.
John Barlow, remarkable old man
Of Montgomery County. New York,
who passed his 10Th birthday last
spring, tells us that he has drank
whisky and chewed and smoked TO.
bacco nearly all his life. He was still
hale and hearty at last accounts, and,
moreover, was said TO be courting a
well-known widow aged nincty-seven,
with good prospects of making her his
fifth wife. This wonderfully preserved
old man has never required tho ser-
vices OF a physician, dentist or an
ocullst. He has lived mucn in the open
air as farmer and has always pre-
ferred walking to riding In his local
travels.
Keeping the temperance question IN
view. however, as sine qua non TO
long life, Francis NJ Anthony, cen
tenarlan living near Bloomington, ILL.,,
who celebrated the 1921 anniversary
Of his birth last May. counters upon
Mr. Barlow in fine style, At this cele-
bration Mr.. Anthony told his friends,
with 10 little pride, that in all the
years which had been allotted to him
he had never tasted alcohol or tobacco
He put stress on this as an indlspensa-
BILE condition to health. happiness and
n serene old age. He is native of
County Tyrone, Ireland, ard came to
this country In 1920. settling with his
parents in upper New York. In 1879
he removed with his family to Illinois.
MANY OLD WOMEN.
At various times during the year at
tention was drawn to remarkable old
ladies', the more notable OF whom form
exceptionally interesting links with the
past. In 1874 Mrs. Fannie Epstein
was born In the Russian city OF Kovno.
This aged woman, who has celebrated
her 10sth birthday. Is still living In Chi
paoo MAKING har home With an dauoh.