The Waipawa Mail. Published Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Saturday, November 27th, 1909. IS LIFE LONGER ?

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXIX, Issue 5495, 27 November 1909, Page 2

The Waipawa Mail. Published Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Saturday, November 27th, 1909. IS LIFE LONGER ?

No question we could propound has a deeper human interest than this: Can the average man and woman look forward to the. enjoyment of a longer period of life than their fathers ? Despite certain philosophers, and the hard buffets of an inconsiderate fate, it is the profoundesthope of all normal individuals that long life here upon earth will be their portion. Long life and happiness is the ultimate toast. Yet, were we to make inquiry of a hundred people of, say, middle-age, whether they thought the average expectation of life was as good in this generation as it was in the last, they would probably record their opinion in the negative. Despite all modern advances on the study of disease and triumphant discoveries in the treatment of it, despite also the multitudinous measures in all civilised countries for the amelioration of the lot of the socially less fortunate, the vague popular impression prevails that life in this twentieth oentury is neither so long nor so merry as it was when the world was still young. No doubt this impression owes its origin in the main to the Biblical records of the age of individuals which, if we could allow that they were computed according to a chronology similar to our own, must have been greatly beyond anything that the modern world can show. In like manner the popular belief prevails that the ancients were of greater physical proportions than the men of the present day. As to the latter assumption, we have the direct and conclusive disproof in the fact that armour still preserved of even the Grecian and Roman periods, when only the picked men wore it, would be uncomfortably tight for the smaller types of presentday soldiery. In point of mere size, therefore, it seems unquestionable that the men of to-day are decidedly taller and larger, if not also stronger, than the men belonging to the ancient period that furnishes us with any reliable basis of comparison. It is usual to hear our fathers talk of the fine men, and still finer women, that were about when they were boys. But then there never were any times like the old times. To the gaze that is fixed affectionately upon the past, the present is always poorer, while the future holds the certain seeds of dissolution.

But the fact supports a cheery optimism. How long the ancients lived we have no Bure manner of knowing; but this we do know, that so far as we have dependable records, the life of the modern man, in the more advanced countries, has been steadily lengthening. According to an American medical insurance authority, in England, France, Russia, Denmark, Sweden and the American State of Massachusetts, human life during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries lengthened by four years a century; that during the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century it lengthened at the rate of nine years a century; that at present it is lengthening in Europe generally at the rate of seventeen years a century; while in Russia the rate is twenty-seven years a century. But if we take the more dependable figures for a more recent period during which life assurance societies have been most active, and mortality tables scientifically compiled, we find that the tendency has been to longer life. The data available goes to 3bow that in England the expectation of male life rose from 89-9 years, and female life from 41-9 years, in the period of 1841 to 1851, to 44-1 and 47-8 for male and female life respectively for the period 1891 to 1901.

When, however, we come to think of the tremendous progress made in the realms of preventative and curative medicine, and, again, and health legislation, the wonder rather is that the increase in longevity is not greater than it is. So strong indeed is the belief in the efficiency of these influences to postpone death that a definite proposal is at present being discussed by the life assurance companies in the United States to endeavour to prolong the premium-paying periods of their policy-holders. The idea is that just as fire insurance companies can do much, by attention to building regulations, and the subsidisation of the fire brigades to reduce the fire risk, so life offices, by throwing their weight on the side of sanitation and public health administration, may reduce the potency of those factors that hasten the human end. This sounds entirely reasonable, and it would not be surprising if in time we find life insurance companies taking a practical part in the education of the publio in the art of healthy living. A distinguished professor of Yale University has computed that if the existing knowledge of the rules of hygiene were faithfully applied in America the average of human life there would be prolonged by fully fifteen years. But, while we may accept as conclusive the evidence of an increase in the average length of life, we need to take some note of those conditions of the modern world which exercise a decided counteraction to the benevolent factors we have been considering. Quite recently an authoritative table was published, giving the deaths at different ages in Scotland in 1905 as compared with thirty years before. An increase of 9 per cent, in the deaths of infants was indicated, bat in young people between one year and fifteen years there had been the astonishing decrease of nearly 35 per cent. In adults from fifteen to fortyfive years there was a decrease of 26 per cent, in the mortality; in the ages forty-five to fifty-five there was no improvement ; while jn the ages fifty-five to seventy-five the mortality had gone 9 per cent, to the bad. What these figures. show is that in the age of greatest responsibility the storm and stress of modern life are most destructive. If the doubt, and often despair which sap vitality between, say, thirty-five and sixty-five, can be replaced by confidence and strength the expectation of life will rise still more quickly, because the improvement so noticeable in the early years will be continued. This at once opens up a great question. It involves the discussion of all the factors which make modern life so difficult for the middle-aged, and it certainly touches a vital spot in the organisation and happiness of the great mass of mankind.