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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



excitable constitutions, who are destined to early death, but that the 

 remainder consists of men likely to enjoy a vigorous old age." 5 Our 

 cases are so few that we can not lay stress on these periods as being 

 particularly precarious in the case of eminent women. 



15 20 £5 30 3f> 40 45 50 55 60 65 7" 73 ISO 85 00 f>5 Years 



Cukve IV. Distribution of Ages of Eminent Women at Death. 



In spite of the fact that in a number of instances the data are too 

 meager to be reliable, it seemed worth while to compute the average 

 age of the eminent women for the different centuries. For the first 

 two centuries after Christ I have only three cases each, but these tend 

 to show that in this remote period, eminent women died early. The 

 martyr's block has left its record in the third century, the average, 

 based on seven cases, being only 28.2 years. Saint Helena escaped a 

 violent death and lived to be 77. If her case were excluded, the average 

 age for the century would be 20.1 years. During the fifth, sixth and 

 seventh centuries the average length of life seems to have been longer. 

 For the remainder of the Middle Ages the figures are so meager as to 

 render them valueless, but from the fourteenth century the numbers 

 are sufficiently large to at least represent a tendency. The average age 

 at dcalii iu the case of eminent women of the fourteenth century was 

 48.7 years; in the fifteenth century, 49.3 years; in the sixteenth cen- 

 tury, 49.8 years; in the seventeenth century the average was increased 

 to 60.6 years; in the eighteenth century it was 64.1 years; in the nine- 

 teenth century, 62.7 years. This, however, is not a final figure for 

 those of this century who are to be the longest lived and who will tend 

 to increase this average arc yet living. It is probable that these aver- 



5 "Hereditary Genius," p. 332, 1869. 



