The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-10-15
GBNTENARIANISM.
oW IT HAS INCREASED IN RE-
 CENT TIMES.

ne Influence of the HeredIty fin tn
 Genesis of Long Life Is We'll KnoEr
 10 All observant Persons.
 Dur readers cannot have failed to no
 e that of latter years there has beer
 ;reased fertility in the production, ol
 least in the record, of cases of genu;
 centenarians. says American Medi.
 pe.' A century ago, the authenticity
 the record-and even the physica
 ssibility of the existence-of human
 ntenarian was questioned by the
 optical. There can be very little
 ubt that a large proportion of the
 htenarian specimens were in former
 es invented by the manufacturers of
 folk lore and fairy tales-in those
 od old days when the registration of fths and baptismal records were not
 carefully carried out. and so securely Rserved, as they have been of recent ars. But, although the annual sup
 of cases may seem to have dimin-
 led, the record of a certain QimiteO
 mber has within recent yeads been
 ced in a position which is historically
 scientifically, impregnable. About 'ee years ago there appeared in the ges of an English medical contempo-
 y, a short notice of the death of Mrs.
 nbury. of Richmond, Surrey, at the
 1erable age of one hundred and eight hrs and four months. The publica-
 n of that article had the desirable ef-
 t of elieiting from T. E. Young, one of
 highest authorities on this subject
 communication which appeared in the Rowing issue, in which he informed
 readers that since the publication of
 well known book on the subject Gin 9), he had obtained incontroyertible sdence of the existence of twenty-two
 fer cases. And, indeed, all the evil hce now before the scientific world es to show that the. span of average
 alan life is lengthening; so that we
 y hug ourselves with the consoling hsideration in this century of hurry. h worry-uniyersally prevailing and anywhere increasing. The additional ysical comforts, the sanitary im- bvements, and the almost universal Fusion of some of the fundamental
 xims of hygiene, have hotherto more tn compensated for the excess of ar and tear produced by the in
 ased velocity which is now so neces- fy in the race for material success, h for the complicated consequences of
 increased competition which the owing population and gradual eleva- n of the standard of skilled labor, ntal as well as physical, have crea-
 in every profession and occupation
 life. Accordingly, it would appear It the ground is gradually sliding m beneath the feet of the ignoble ny of pessinists.
 The hopes inspired by the rapid pro- ss of the principles and practice of giene and of the knowledge of the cise nature of disease, during the 1t half century, have led some enthu- stic scientists, especially the elect mbers of that order who have not < arrived at the prosaic age of forty, 1 express with considerable confidence X prophetic forecast, that, before the l of the twentieth century, the gene | of every one of the disease producing probes will have been brought under 1 nplete control. If not then actually l bed off the face of the earth, their en- snce into, and their subsequent de- 1 ppment and reproduction In, the tis- S of the human body will have been Rctively provided against. The gi- htic strides which have been contin- Rsly made during the whole of the It century in all departments of sci life advancement do, most assured give some reasonable grounds for In an outlook. And we are, i'll conse- ence, invited to hope that thencefor- fd the office of the physician will be longer required to include the cure disease. He will only require to fntain the efficiency of his scouts and posts, so as to insure timely warm of every approaching invasion of kroscopic enemies, if any happen to lstilI left. And all his other energies y be devoured to the provision of hns for the lengthening of the span human life, and the further develop nt and expansion of the physical and htal powers of man. |lmost coincident with the death Of Hanbury occurred that of another pcially and historically more celebra- lady centenarian, the Dowager By Carew, a native of the County |terford, where she first saw the light I79S the year of the French of the siping Irish annalist. Since that pe- ? Irish journals have been pretty stant in their supply of centenarian DrGs. Indeed. it is worthy of notice t the Emerald Isle, notwithstanding drawbacks offered by it's much lsed climate, has always taken a N ling position in furnishing materials e
 the records of centenarianism. | ne of the older records are, of course, Q ed with an unmistakable coloring of ( lance. Scientific critics of the twen- Q h century will receive with skeptica1 g ;ount the hearsay evidence of Sir l lter Raleigh-the founder of our own h e of Virginia regarding the age at ed by the famous Countess of Des- Id, even in the curtailed edition oh appeared in the latter doggerel: 0 lived to the age of a hundred and