September 6, 1912]- 



SCIENCE 



3n 



years. In man himself the average length 

 of life would probably be greater than the 

 three-score and ten years allotted to him 

 by the Psalmist if we could eliminate the 

 results of disease and accident ; when these 

 results are included it falls far short of 

 that period. If the terms of life given in 

 the purely mythological part of the old 

 testament were credible, man would in the 

 eai'ly stages of his history have possessed a 

 remarkable power of resisting age and dis- 

 ease. But, although many here present 

 were brought up to believe in their literal 

 veracity, such records are no longer ac- 

 cepted even by the most orthodox of theo- 

 logians, and the nine hundred odd years 

 with which Adam and his immediate de- 

 scendants are credited, culminating in the 

 nine hundred and sixty-nine of Methuse- 

 lah, have been relegated, with the account 

 of creation and the deluge, to their proper 

 position in literature. When we come to 

 the Hebrew patriarchs, we notice a con- 

 siderable diminiition to have taken place 

 in what the insurance offices term the "ex- 

 pectation of life." Abraham is described 

 as having lived only to 175 years, Joseph 

 and Joshua to 110, Moses to 120; even at 

 that age "his eye was not dim nor his nat- 

 ural force abated." We can not say that 

 under ideal conditions all these terms are 

 impossible; indeed, Metchnikoff is disposed 

 to regard them as probable; for great ages 

 are still occasionally recorded, although it 

 is doubtful if any as considerable as these 

 are ever substantiated. That the expecta- 

 tion of life was better then than now 

 would be inferred from the apologetic tone 

 adopted by Jacob when questioned by 

 Pharaoh as to his age: "The days of the 

 years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and 

 thirty years; few and evil have the days 

 of the years of my life been, and have not 

 attained unto the days of the years of the 

 life of my fathers in the days of their pil- 



grimage. " David, to whom, before the 

 advent of the modern statistician, we owe 

 the idea that seventy years is to be re- 

 garded as the normal period of life, is him- 

 self merely stated to have "died in a good 

 old age." The periods recorded for the 

 kings show a considerable falling-off as com- 

 pared with the patriarchs; but not a few 

 were cut off by violent deaths, and many 

 lived lives which were not ideal. Amongst 

 eminent Greeks and Romans few very long 

 lives are recorded, and the same is true of 

 historical persons in mediffival and modem 

 history. It is a long life that lasts much 

 beyond eighty; three such linked together 

 carry us far back into history. Mankind 

 is in this respect more favored than most 

 mammals, although a few of these surpass 

 the period of man's existence. Strange 

 that the brevity of human life should be a 

 favorite theme of preacher and poet when 

 the actual term of his "erring pilgrimage" 

 is greater than that of most of his fellow 

 creatures ! 



The modem applications of the prin- 

 ciples of preventive medicine and hygiene 

 are no doubt operating to lengthen the 

 average life. But even if the ravages of 

 disease could be altogether eliminated, it is 

 certain that at any rate the fixed cells of 

 our body must eventually grow old and 

 ultimately cease to function; when this 

 happens to cells which are essential to the 

 life of the organism, general death must 

 result. This will always remain the uni- 

 versal law, from which there is no escape. 

 "All that lives must die, passing through 

 nature to eternity." 



Such natural death unaccelerated by 

 disease — is not death by disease as unnat- 

 ural as death by accident? — should be a 

 quiet, painless phenomenon, unattended 

 by violent change. As Dastre expresses it, 

 "The need of death should appear at the 

 end of life, just as the need of sleep ap- 



