Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1949-07-01

y
born around the turn OF the CEN
tury. If so, you are now forty
eight or forty-nine years old,
and that means you have been
unusually lucky. The average
lspnRxpectancy of person born
il rle year 1900 was forty-slx
years. You people who have al
ready lived more than forty-slx
years may possibly live another
80 or 40, now that you have
overcome all the hazards of your
earlier years. A great many
people nowadays are living to
be seventy, eighty or even ninety
years of age. And the average
length of life increases with each
generation.
In general this means a good
thing. 1t means that people are
becoming healthier. When we
look over our infant death rec
ords for the past half century,
we see that tremendous gains
have been made. Most of the
babies born today will survive
tiE.E hazardous first month OF
life, which is the period when
the greatest number of infant
deaths occur. Most of the child
rem who reach school age Will
survive, too. Unlike the children
of 1900, only an occasional one
will die of diphtheria, scarlet
fever, or some other communi-
cable disease. The youngsters
who reach adulthood will not be
likely to die of tuberculosis, as
so many young people did dur
ing the early years of this cen
tury. In fact, unless they are
killed in accidents, today's child
rem have an excellent chance of
living out at least the full blbl-
cal span of three score and ten
years.
And what does that mean? 1t
means that we have many more
elderly people with us today
tan in the year 1900. Seven per
u. of our present population
consists of people who are over
sixty-five years of age. Let's see
what we need to do in order to
make these long lives of ours
more worth living.
Too many of us assume that,
because a person has reached his
sixties, he is through-fit for
nothing but to be put on the
shelf. In assuming that, we are
often robbing ourselves of some
of the fine contributions to COM
munity life that these older
people could make. Many man
of sixty today is as vigorous as
his father was at forty. The old
person today has lived more
healthful life than his parents
did. His woring hours have been
shorter, he has had more time
fF recreation, better medical
and health care, better nutrition
and a higher standard of living.
Also, his training and education
on the whole have been superior
to those of his parents.
The majority of old people do
not want to retire at sixty or
sixty-five. They do not ask to be
relieved of all burdens and given
an easy life. Many of them
could 60 on working and pro-
ducing for many years, without
danger to themselves or deteri-
oration of their work. You are
not going to solve the problem
of person over fifty by giving
him enough money to live on for
the rest of his life. You must
provide additional means of
meeting his essential human
,eds. The problem of keeping
ben alive, useful, and happy
after fifty is far more social
problem than medical problem.
Legislators, managers of indus
tries, and labor leaders must
cooperate to solve it. We have
set up arbitrary rules of retire
ment, instead of asking if man
is able to handle a certain job,
whether it be in manual labor,
business the profession, or else
where, we merely ask the date
of his birth. If that date was
long enough ago, we tell the
worker he must retire. In this
attitude we show our inconsiS-
tency We complain that our
population is growing older
that we cannot afford to care
for all the older people. Yet at
the same time we push a great
number of people into the de
%andent group, simply because
they have attained an arbitrary
retirement age.
A great many things can be
done to relieve this situation-to
help our older citizens help
themselves, as many of them are
willing and able to do.
First, their health should be
maintained at a high level. To
accomplish that end, we need to
start long before the period of
old age begins. There are always
exceptions, but as general rule,
people who have taken reason
able care of their health during
their younger years will enjoy
better health in old age The
yearly medical checkup is desir-
able for everyone, and it is a
MUST for people over forty.
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