HUMAN HOUR GLASS

Taranaki Daily News, 26 April 1935, Page 5

HUMAN HOUR GLASS

LENGTH OF LIFE GAUGED' ACCURACY OF PREDICTION IMPORTANT INSTRUMENT PERFECTION BY GERMAN By Telegraph—Pi-ess Assn.—Copyright. Rec. 9 p.m. Washington, April 23. A new “hour glass” device which peers into the eye of a person and tells him how fast he is ageing and how many years of life he may expect, barring accident or bacterial disease, was described for the first time at Washington to-day before the National Academy of Sciences by Professor Felix Bernstein, formerly of Goettingen University and now visiting professor of Columbia University. The discovery is regarded as highly significant in its medical and social implications. The device, which Professor Bernstein used in predicting accurately the life term of about 2500 persons during the course of researches in Germany, measures the loss of elasticity in the lens of the eye of an ageing person, there being a direct correlation between the amount of this hardening and the hardening of the arterial system. A statistical method, furthermore, shows the relations of the age of the patient, the degree of hardening and the normal rate of such hardening, thus enabling longevity predictions to within one year or less.