Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-09-11
PROLONGING HUMAN LIFE
By FREDERIC J. HASKIN.

II Is expected that the forthcoming re-
turns of the census bureau will show that
the life OF the average American citizen
is several years longer now than In 1900
The span of human life has been length
ening in America during the past half
century at a remarkable rate. The many
agencies that are engaged in arousing the
public conscience to the dangers of con-
tagious disease, together with the sue
cesses that are attending the ministra-
tons Of preventive medicine. give hope
that by 1925 the average American will
have twenty years more of life than his
grandfather had a century before.
A table of the expectations Of human
life recently compiled in the healthy dis
tricts" OF England and Wales, where the
death rate is practically the same as that
of the United States. is full OF food for
thought and shows the transitory status
Of human life in a remarkable way. The
statistics give a moving picture OF an
imaginary nation Of 1OOOOO.OO0 souls. all
born in a given year. As the film reels
off. one beholds the great battle for sur
vival hears the funeral marches and sees
the unnumbered thousands falling out Of
the ranks as the years go by.
In the first year of the life Of this i'm
aginary nation death takes it's most ire
mendous toll Nearly
the Republic. 100000 fall in the
great battle for exist
First Year OF ence. One-fifth as
many die in that great first year Of car
mage as die in all the following sixty
four years. If 100000 OF the babies
which die could be saved through their
first year more than five out of every
nine would live until they were sixty
five. In other words, when infantile NOR
mortality, medical science will be able
to offer to the nation the finest army
that ever marched under a battle flag, re-
cruited entirely from the lives 1t saves in
that dread first year of babyhood.
As the picture moves on we see the
great nation of two-year-olds taking a
firmer grasp on life. Each year there
after until the twelfth year the mortal
ity becomes less. There are fewer vic
Tins, both relatively and absolutely. in
period up to the time when senility be-
gins to set in and old age becomes the
ally of death. In the twenty-first year
humanity seems to be catching its second
wind. When this one-age republic be-
comes sixty-five nearly one-half of the
original 1OO.O0O,OOO are dead. The sue
ceeding twenty-five years are more fatal
in their consequences than the preceding
sixtyfour. During this quarter of a CEN
fury about 100000 die.
In ninety years after the birth of this
imaginary republic only 100000 people
are left to maintain 1t. By the time of
Its centenary ali but 1890 will be gone.
At 1O5 years there still will be 600 left
At 107 there will be only 100 hoary- headed
survivors. but the ensuing years will see
the last of these.
The United States is now a nation of
approximately 1O0,OOO.OOO souls. Based
on the England-Wales
Forecast for mortality table. only a
co,o few hundred of these will
1ear 1V1V. hs here when the census
of 201O is taken. BY 2017 the last person
now living will have gone to his reward,
and the children of the third and fourth
generations will be the makers of the
nation.
What is being accomplished in promot-
ing the longevity of the race is shown by
the statistics of mortality in the various
countries of the globe. In 1908 the NOR
tally rate in the United States. as dis
closed by the census returns for the regis
tration area, was 153 out of every 10000
In 1900 1T was 176 out of every 10000.
In another way we get fine picture OF
what medical science Is doing for the
American people In 1880 the average
American lived 81 years In 1900 his
lease on life had increased TO 352 years.
At that ratio of increase the span Of life
would be doubled in a hundred years. In
Austria and Spain. where ignorance Is
the rule among the masses, the death
rate IS nearly double what it Is in the
United States and Denmark In Hun
gary, another country of ignorant masses.
il is far greater than in England or in
Sweden or Norway. The average Amer
lean lives nearly twice as long as the
average inhabitant of India.
We commonly think that people in the
days Of our grandfathers and great
grandfathers lived longer than we of this
hustling era, but vital statistics show
this supposition to be the very opposite of