THE WAY TO LIVE LONG

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 108, 3 November 1937, Page 16

THE WAY TO LIVE LONG

Dr. F. A. E.jCrew, in the zoology section of the British Association's annual meeting, said that the ratio of the sexes at birth could be used as a biological yardstick for measuring social progress. In England and Wales, in 1935, for.every 100 girls born alive there were 105.6 boys. The sexes were numerically equal at 15 to 19, the threshold of the reproductive prime. After 20,, the swing to female numerical ascendancy went on until among people of 85 and over there were more than twice:as many women as men. To be Born was a more dangerous adventure for the male than for the female, and the true recipe for longevity was to be born a girl. For some reason the human male Was more fragile7fhan the female, so that under unfavourable circumstances the male suffered more easily arid!more severely than the fey male, The excess of boy babies over girls was less' in towns than in rural areas. It was highest among first-born children, and was usually lower among the Illegitimate. It was higher in the upper and;middle classes than among unskilled workers. The reason was that in general the more generous the environment the smaller, 7 the family, and the greater the attention given to the child-bearing mother.