LONGEVITY IN FRANCE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 146, 12 August 1911, Page 3

LONGEVITY IN FRANCE.

The average length of human life in France has increased by 20 per cent in the last quarter of a centuiy, and Professor Banuelongm who is president of the Acaocmy Medidne. has given an intern-.c ug expionatio of this fact to a Parisian contemporary. At the beginning of lasi century the average duration barely oxceede 1 the ago of thirty, in 1880 it was up ‘ to forty, and non it varies between 47 and 18. Ibe progress of science , which has low • rr;d tho rata of mortality from epidemics and contagious diseases, and the development of hygonic pi iodides among all classes of society, have certainly helped to delay the inevitable hour. But, adds the learned professor, there is, imioi tunalaly, another reason, which is not so satisfactory. It is tin 1 steady diminution of the birth-rate. Up to linage of two years infant mm tality is \crv high. But out of 1000 infants, from 200 to 800 die in the lirsl years of childhood, and this terrible mortality naturally has the result of ennrhlei.ihly diminishing the average rate of life. Now, as the birth-rare has been deciearng for some tun*, fewer infants die, ami the average rate o! human longevity will ini tliei increase in pi ;p)i i ion to (lie I miller rleciir.e in the birth-rate. Kueh is the explanation given by this high authority, and it may. perhaps, ho applied, thongs in a minor degree, to some other counliies: than Fianec.