Modern Methuselahs or, Short biographical sketches of a few advanced nonagenarians or actual centenarians who were distinguished in art, science, literature, or philanthropy : also, brief notices of some individuals remarkable chiefly for their longevity / by John Burn Bailey.

  • Bailey, John Burn.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Modern Methuselahs or, Short biographical sketches of a few advanced nonagenarians or actual centenarians who were distinguished in art, science, literature, or philanthropy : also, brief notices of some individuals remarkable chiefly for their longevity / by John Burn Bailey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    women, there exists no difference between the married and the single, between those who did bear children and those who did not. On the important question of alcoholic beverages, these additional returns throw no additional light, or rather, they somewhat obscure the light which the previous statistics had shed on the subject. They can scarcely be said to harmonise with the returns of those life assurance companies which have formed a separate department for the insurance of the lives of total abstainers ; for in every such case it is asserted that the deaths are so far below the computed average that much lower than ordinary premiums would cover the risk. As all the individuals cited by Professor Humphry lived to what must be considered old age, and than which no more advanced period is found upon the books of life insurance companies, it might appear a foregone conclusion that a careful avoidance of alcoholic liquors would have been the rule among them. It was not so. The exact percentage of those who were lifelong or rigid abstainers is unfortunately not given, but fifteen per cent, took none, or very little, of such beverages. This very little is very vague; for as each gave his or her own version of what they had. taken, the standard of much or little no doubt greatly varied, as the Professor makes it vary when he ]3articularises. For example, he states that thirty-three per cent, had taken alcohol in moderation, which he defines to mean one or two pints of beer daily; as if there were scarcely any difference between seven pints and