THE CULT OF LONGEVITY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20420, 23 November 1929, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE CULT OF LONGEVITY

MODERATION IN ALL THINGS

There are five hundred persons in London who have pledged themselves 10 do their utmost to become able-bodied, clearminded centenarians. They have banded themselves together under the title of the Centenarian Club, and in time the club will be boused and a spread of the cult of longevity extended over the country. Dr. Maurice Ernest, the secretary and founder, told the writer that the intending centenarians were not to be regarded as food or health cranks. "In food wo advise nothing like a diet. Eat sparingly of all good foods; limit alcohol nnd stnoking to reasonable amounts, and sleep not less than eight hours a day. Ihe only binding rule'is that members will spread bv example and precept sound principles in all health matters.

" Our members are not centenarians, but we are believers in the possibility of an expansion of the present average span of life, which is between eighty and ninety years, not, seventy. We have organised a census of centenarians living in the British isles, and hope at, the same time to gather much valuable data from them. " Nobody knows to-day how many centenarians there are, in the British Isles, for the figures at the last census, in 1921, are practically certain to have changed. Then there were thirty men and eighty women in England registered as one hundred or more years old. In Scotland there were six men and twentynine 'women.

" In Ireland in 1911 there were 133 men and 181 women, and in the Irish Free State there were in 1926 forty-two men and seventy-four women. So far as is known centenarians generally are too much worn. We aim not merely at reaching the century, but at becoming .ablebodied and clear-minded centenarians.,"J