Longevity : the means of prolonging life after middle age / by John Gardner.

  • John Gardner
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Longevity : the means of prolonging life after middle age / by John Gardner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    20/218 (page 8)
    • hear the phrase, “ His time was come,” used to modify the sorrow for the premature loss of friends. This must be an error. The expression rather refers to the limit generally of human life—the hundred years of M. Flourens, or the hundred and five as explained above, or the average duration of life in the human race. That it cannot be meant to apply to individuals, implying a fatal fixity to the term of their ex- istence, is amply proved by incontrovertible facts. 1. The average duration of life has increased during the present century in England and some other countries. This is so generally admitted as to need na proof. 2. This average varies with different classes of society, and with different occupations. Thus, the clergy enjoy the longest lives : medical men have the shortest, etc., etc. 3. The rich, or those exempt from the cares and anxieties of business, cceteris paribus, live longer than the middle classes, or the poor. Great longevity is, indeed, not uncommon in eleemosynary institutions, asylums, and union workhouses. The reason is obvious : their inmates