Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On the presumption of survivorship / by James Bell Pettigrew. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![who first ancciimbod to the destroying element. With regard to age, it may be and lias been variously estimated. Aristotle, e.g., divided life into three portions—viz., the period of growth,, the period during which the body remains stationary, and that of decline; while Varro divided it into five, and Solon into ten. Hippocrates and the gi'eater number of the ancients adopted a septenary division, and this division has been almost universally adhered to in modern times. Thus the period of growth is made to indude—Infancy (Infantia), Second Infancy or Boyhood (Pueritia), and Adolescence (Adolescentia); the period during which the body undergoes little change—Youth (Juventus) and Manhood (AUtas virilis); and the period of dedine—Old Age and Decre.- j)itude. Infancy, as commonly estimated, extends from the first to tho seventh year; Second Infancy, or Boyhood, from the seventh to the fourteenth year; Adolescence, from the fourteenth to the seventeenth or eighteenth year; Youth, from the seventeenth or eighteenth year to the twenty-first, or, more properly, the twenty-fifth; Manhood, from the time the powers corporeal and mental are fully matured until old age and decrepitude supervene. As the e])Ochs which comprise the sum total of existence insensibly glide into each other, it has aj)peared to me that in framing rules for the regulation of que.stions of survivor.ship, we shall gain precision by reducing them to the lowest possible number—i.e., by fixing on such periods only, as ai'e characterized by obvious and well-marked mental and bodily changes. With this object in view, I have, on reflection, divided life into four great eras. The first, embracing Infancy and Childhood, and extending from the first to the fourteenth year, a period characterized by great bodily development; the second, comprising Adolescence and Youth, and extending from the fourteenth to the twenty-fifth year, at which latter period the body may be considered as having attained its full stature;* the third, including Manhood, and extending from the twenty-fifth to the fifty-fifth, or, it may be in some instances to the sixtieth year, which era may be said to be the term of man’s greatest mental and bodily activity; and the fourth or last era, comprehending Old wge and Decrepitude, when the body may be considered as gradually giving way. The latter period, I may remark, forms the converse of Infancy and Childhood, when the body rapidly developes. Outline of a New Code of Laws for deciding Questions of Survivorshij) where Alales and Females pensh by themsdves. A. As far as infancy and childhood are concerned, the elder may fairly be presumed the survivor whatever the mode of death, aud for the following reasons: the strength and power of endurance will be greater, while the instinct which prompts to the preservation of life will be more fully developed. B. From the fourteenth to the twenty-fifth year the same rule will a]-ply, as the activity of the elder will equal that of the younger, while > Quetelet thinks this does not happen till the twenty-seventh year.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21955876_0018.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
