Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-06-19
LONGEVITY AND TRADE
MAN LIVES TEN YEARS LONGER
THAN HIS GRANDFATHER.
Brain Workers Are Hardy People and
Last Long-sanitary Progress
and the Mortality Rate.
From the New York Evening Post.

From the New York Evening Post
The German professor has long been
famed for his industry, his absentmind-
edness and his footnotes To these distine-
tive qualities another should be added
longevity. Nearly every week attention is
called to some instance In point. German
newspapers have a habit of printing elab-
crate geographic sketches and critical ap-
precautions of prominent men when they
reach the age Of seventy or eighty These
are animated by the same nil nisi bonum
spirit that characterizes. In the main, the
obituary notices in our own journals; and
they also give the satisfaction of
reading about the qualities which insure
long life.
In other countries the longevity of pro-
fessors would probably be as manifest as
in Germany If attention were as frequently
called to the matter. The recent deaths
Of two Harvard professors provided an
interesting test of the general attitude re-
garding this question. The common feel
ing was that John K. Paine at sixty-seven
sand N. s. Shaler at sixty-five died prema-
turely, without having given to the world
all that they had to give. Men no longer
retire at fifty" as a sanitarian has re-
marked. land no longer called verer-
able IL they die. did the Venerable Bede
at sixty-two." The average man today
lives almost ten years longer than his
grandfather did
A. r. Thayer has compiled a list of $50
prominent men and women, mostly of the
nineteenth century. whose average age at
the time of death was sixty-eight years and
eight months. Thus neither Paine nor Sha-
Ter reached the average age of men of
their class. The prominent persons re-
ferred to-all brain workers-lived on an
average thirty years longer than the popu-
lace as a whole There Is thus good ground
for the belief that great men are in the
matter of longevity. favored class ~
parently, however, all the professions and
occupations are not equally favored. Mr.
ihayers list included 80 historians {and
historians are mostly professors) who stood
at the head with average life duration
OF scventy-three years; IS scientists and in
ventors Lived seventy-two years; 112 states
men, seventy-one: 30 women, sixty-nine.
40 men of letters, sixty-seven; 46 poets
and 30 painters and sculptors, sixty-six:
30 musicians, sixty-two. Why are must
clans at the bottom? Is there ANYTHING
IN their profession that tends to shorten
their lives?
Longevity Of Scientists.
Pursuing a different and more exact
method OF investigation than Mr.. Thayer,
Frof. Josef Jastrow, nevertheless. has
reached the same conelusion-that the lives
OF distinguished men of science average ten
years longer than those of musicians of
corresponding rank. He suggests that there
should be division into men of thought
men of feeling and men of action; and he
ACIDS that all the studies with which he is
acquainted point to the conclusion that
men of thought live longer than those
VINO achieve distinction through unusual
Qualities of their emotional nature. In
view OF the figures cited. this seems pIausI-
BILE; yet. when we study the facts bioeraph-
icaily we find that there must be fallacy
son ewhere, and that the profession OF
music, as SUCH cannot be held inimical to
longevity.
III 1t were, operate composition would
have to be held particularly deadly. be-
cause so many Of the best opera composers
among them Mozart, Weber, Bellini Bizet
died young. Yet Richard Wagner. the
81 ca test or them all and the most emo
tional. lived within few months of sew
enty years: Auber lived eighty-nine, the
emotional Verdi eighty-eight, and the no
less emotional Gounod seyenty-fiye The
musical average of longevity Is unfairly,
or unfortunately. lowered by the fact that
not only Mozart. Weber. Belini and Bizet
died at an exceptionally early age. but also
Schubert Mendelssohn and Chopin. All of
these srccumbed to diseases -consumption,
angina. typhoid fever and overwork--which
had absolutely no relation to any special
liability incurred by creator of music.
1t must be admitted In a general way that
gerously exposed to sensual allurements.
which may shorten life: but In the exercise
of music, as such-either as creator, per-
former or teacher Emanuel Garcia has just
celebrated his IOlst birthday)-it Is dfmcult
to discover any special reason for short
ened careef- It seems to be entirely qles-
ton OF Individual health. heredity and hab-
its Nor Is It permissible to segregate nau-
sicians as men OF emotion from scientists
az men OF thought The compositions OF
work AZ the discoveries and experiments OF
80 man Of oc4euee. while many . historian