THE CHANCES OF LONG LIFE.

IN the Medical Record, some time ago, the subject of longevity was touched upon, and several instances were cited in which individuals were shown to have reached a span of life far beyond the ordinary limit. Most of these examples, however, occurred many years ago, and their authenticity is not wholly beyond doubt.

M. Jean Finot is quoted in the Literary Digest (May 31) as bringing forward instances of longevity which quite put to blush any cases mentioned in the Record. He refers to a resident of Genoa who is said to have reached his four hundredth year in the enjoyment of all his intellectual faculties; a Scotchman who lived to be over 200 years old, and various monks of Mont Athos who have reached 150 years. He asserts that Servian statistics for 1897 show three persons between 135 and 140 years old, 18 from 126 to 135, 123 from 115 to 125, and 290 from 105 to 115. In 1890, there were, he says, in the United States 3,981 persons over 100 years of age and 21 in London.

The most satisfactory feature with regard to M. Finot's views is that he does not believe that the average length of human life has been reduced. On the contrary, he believes that it is constantly increasing, owing to the progress of hygiene.

In answer to the question why do we die at all the writer answers, "For three reasons: First, want of physical exercise in the open air; second, poisoning by microbes which the phagocytes have not succeeded in destroying; third, fear of death." Nevertheless, comforting though M. Finot's optimistic ideas as to longevity in the present time may be, there are other philosophers who by no means agree with his conclusions. M. Henri de Varigny on the contrary thinks that some two thousand years ago a man of 68 or thereabouts was likely to live longer than a modern Englishman of the same age. His reasons for thinking thus are as follows: "Evidently there was among the Egyptians a natural selection, resulting from en

vironment that does not take place to-day, at least to the same degree, among civilized people. The Egyptians who reached the age of 68 years had robust constitutions, and therefore their chances of longevity were exceptional. Mortality was higher among the children and the adults, and there was a kind of selection by death. The man of to-day is not stronger; he is possibly weaker. But the majority of the people live under conditions more favorable to longevity, because we know what conditions to promote. In other words, the greater expectation of average life is the result of the progress of sanitary science in the fullest sense, and not the result of increase of vitality. It is the consequence of the evolution of man's intellect rather than of the evolution of his body." It is for these reasons that M. de Varigny asserts that although the chances of life have increased for infancy, youth, and the prime of life, they have not increased for old age.

M. de Varigny, in fact, is merely one of the numerous band of exponents of the survival of the fittest theory. Human life in general is prolonged to an extent not dreamt of in the days of the ancient Egyptians, when weakly children would probably have been promptly killed, and when only the constitutionally strong had a chance to survive. It is still a debatable point as to which custom is the best for the race at large.

THE DEVIL OF INDIGESTION.

"A SICK man, sir," said Dr. Johnson, "is always a scoundrel." The language is perhaps somewhat strong and lacking in charity, but it contains a good grain of truth. The dyspeptic, who sees the world given. over to evil and daily growing worse, is very likely to think himself unable to swim against the current and to drift to disaster. "We are saved by hope;" but without a good digestion, faith, hope and charity are. impossible. The devil has been more frequently put to flight by a blue pill than by

the inkstand hurled by even a Luther.Good Housekeeping.

Whatever interpretation may be placed on the action of lemons in general and citric acid in particular, these results are, beyond question, interesting to chronicle.

LEMON JUICE FOR RHEUMATISM. [From the European Edition of the Herald.]

THE idea of treating rheumatism with lemon juice appears to have had its rise in Germany. The method consists in swallowing the juice of one lemon on the first day, of two on the second day, and so on progressive up to twenty-five lemons. When the limit is reached the number of lemons is progressively diminished.

M. Desplats, of Lille, has recently adopted this treatment with some of his patients who suffer from articular rheumatism. In one case the patient was able to drop the treatment at three lemons. In another, he succeeded in effecting a cure at twenty-five lemons, so complete and so persistent that at the end of ten months the patient had not once had an attack, whereas previously he had suffered periodically every month. The third case was one of ankylosis, so bad that the patient could not dress himself without help. To-day he has almost entirely recovered the use of his limbs, and is free from pain.

M. Desplats has also tried this mode of treatment on a patient suffering from attacks of rheumatism accompanied by disease of the heart, for which all means adopted had proved merely palliative. After a few days the patient experienced a manifest relief of the articular symptoms, but he also experienced pain in the upper right side of the thorax, the pain being extremely great and tenacious. In another case there was the same improvement, though in a less marked degree, and the pain in the thorax made its appearance at the end of the treatment. A third case gave the same results. Another patient suffering from rheumatism that had proved refractory to salicylate and to thyroid when treated with citric acid in doses of from two to ten grammes daily improved considerably.

AMERICANS LIVING LONGER.

THE Census Bureau has issued a statement showing the increasing age of the population from decade to decade. The statement gives the results of computing the median instead of the average age. The median is such an age that half the population is under it and half is over it.

The median age of the total population in 1900 was 22.8, as compared with 21.9 in 1890. The median age of the white population in the last census year was 23.4, and the colored, including negroes, Indians, and Mongolians, was 19.7, while in 1890 the white population was 22.4 and the colored 18.3. The report shows that there was an increase in the median age of the white population during each decade from 1810 to 1900 amounting in the ninety years to 7.4 years. The statement adds:

"Many complex influences have COoperated in producing as a resultant this steady change in the age composition of the population. There may be mentioned, the rapid progress of medical and sanitary science, which has tended to increase the average length of life; the decrease in the relative number of children born, which has made the earlier age periods less preponderant numerically in the total population, and the influx, especially since 1840, of great numbers of adult immigrants, increasing the number in the older age periods."

WHEN yu Go 2 se sumbody Who Haz Konsumpshun just tri 2 Remember that the fizsishun has phurnished him Awl the Fizick he kneeds, an yu had better take in sum Fun.

FRUIT.

Ar the recent Rochester convention of the National Apple Shippers' Association D. S. Beckwith, of Albion, N. Y., read a paper on the development of the modern refrigerator system of storing and preserving fruit.

"Professor Benjamin M. Nyce, of Kingston, Decatur County, Ind.," said Mr. Beckwith, "was the first person to make use of the cold storage of fruit for commercial purposes. How he came to discover the system is interesting. Professor Nyce had been in poor health for several years, and had been ordered by his physician to make fresh fruit throughout the year one of the main features of his diet. This was in 1856. As long as the summer and fall held out this regimen was easy enough to follow, but what puzzled the professor was the outlook for the winter. At last, one day as he was visiting a nearby town, he happened to be passing an icehouse.

"His mind was busy with his fresh fruit problem when his eye caught sight of the refrigerator building. Then the happy inspiration came to him. Why not keep fruits in ice as well as meats and fish and other food-products? That winter he carried his idea into operation. His first cold storage warehouse, and indeed the first one built for the purpose in this country, was erected that winter on his brother's farm. It was a small building, about 12 x 14 feet, and 25 feet high. It was constructed with double walls packed with dry leaves and with a metal flooring about half way up of tin for the ice. Below were packed the fruits, but for some reason, probably lack of ventilation, the fruit did not keep well and became musty and stale. The next winter the professor planned and built another warehouse, which was so great an improvement on the first one that to his admiring neighbors it seemed almost perfect. The walls. of this house were packed with clover chaff, and the fruit kept satisfactorily.

"The next house of the kind was built at Greensburg, and in 1860 or 1861 the first patent on the system was taken out. A large

short time afterward, and was probably the first complete success. It was fitted with outside metal sheathing and absorbents to take up the moisture."

USE OF EYEGLASSES GROWING.

In England, and to a certain extent in this country, there is again an outcry that we are using our eyes too much, that we are going blind, that we "shall soon be as bespectacled as the Germans."

In this country more people wear glasses now than ever before simply because more people are intelligent about their eyes and correct the mistakes which careless nature has made. It was Helmholtz-was it not? -who said that if he had never seen a human eye and one were to be brought to his laboratory he would declare it a miserable piece of botchwork. It used to be the fashion to go into ecstacies over every product of nature and to talk about nature's marvelous economies and miraculous adaptability. But science has stopped all that by showing up nature as a wasteful, plodding, and very stupid mechanic, toilsomely and bunglingly and with preposterous slowness trying to adapt her creatures to their environment.

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Like the knee and elbow joints, the eye is one of nature's ludicrous botch jobs. Rarely indeed has she turned out a pair of eyes that can see things as they are. most all of us need glasses, and if the day ever comes when we have less physical vanity, almost all of us will wear them—not merely when no one is about, but all the time, so that the eyes will be constantly protected and corrected.

As for eyes being injured by use-quicklunches and tight shoes have injured more eyes than all the fine print and all the dim or glaring lights.

ALTITUDE FOR PULMONARY IN

VALIDS.

SIR HERMAN WEBER, of London, who is probably the greatest living authority on the question of altitudes, gives the following indications as to the choice of climate for pulmonary invalids.

Ist. In cases with limited disease at one or both apices, without or with only a slight amount of fever, nearly all climates can be made use of, but especially great altitudes and sea voyages, if the constitution is a strong one.

2nd. Cases with limited local disease and high fever must be at first treated in their homes or immediate neighborhood.

3rd. In the majority of cases with extensive disease of one or both lungs, without fever or with only slight fever, treatment at only a moderate elevation, or at warm seaside localities, deserves the preference. 4th. In advanced cases with fever, neighboring sheltered health resorts, with careful supervision, should

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5th. In cases of progressive tuberculosis, with scattered foci in both lungs and much fever, localities near home, or the home itself, are the best places.

6th. In cases of chronic, slowly progressive phthisis, better results are obtained from warm winter results, or sometimes from sea voyages.

7th. Quiescent cases, with extensive damage or cicatrization, are generally better off at only slight elevations.

8th. Cases with albuminuria, without fever, should avoid great altitudes.

9th. The complication of moderate diabetes does not exclude great altitudes, but the latter are injurious in cases of advanced diabetes and emaciation.

10th. Chronic cases, with much catarrh, require places with as little wind as possible. 11th. Great altitudes are contraindicated in chronic cases with extensive emphysema.

12th. For the prevention of scrofula and tuberculosis all healthful climates can be used, but great altitudes have advantages

against tuberculosis, and marine climates (including sea voyages) more against scrofula.

13th. The cure of tuberculosis during the early stages is possible in all climates, but climate itself, without careful medical supervision, is generally insufficient. The patients' blind reliance on climate often leads to errors, to aggravation of the disease, and to death.

A LIVELY LIAR.

I BEGAN to see how hard it was to tell a true story so as to be believed. I concluded that, as I meant to make my tongue secure my breakfast, I would fall back upon fiction. I went up to the open door of the little cottage and smelt tobacco. This had the double effect of making me greatly want to smoke and assuring me that a man was within, and that I was, therefore, less secure of a meal than I should have been without the too critical charity of my own sex. I knocked with the timidity of the hungry. A very young woman came out of the back room.

"What is it?" she said.

I replied: "I am an unfortunate man just out of hospital. I have a wife and nine. children; the youngest is blind and my wife is sick."

"Poor thing. How old is she?" "About twenty-five."

This seemed to strike the woman as comical. She laughed aloud.

certainly a very lively liar.

"Well, you are

Aren't you the

man that got drunk and drove poor Mr. Smile's horse into a circus and broke my husband's leg, and told him you were a banker and worth three millions? Oh, dear, but you can fib, and you don't do it well. I could fib better, and oh my! that poor wife and nine children at twenty-five years of age!"

Upon this she fell into a chair and laughed herself into prodigality of tears.S. WEIR MITCHELL, in Lippincott.

WORDS OF WISDOM.

Being Extracts from the Later Speeches by Wm. McKinley.

THE ideals of yesterday are the truths of to-day. What we hope for and aspire to now, we will realize in the future if we are prudent and careful. If right is on our side, and we pursue resolute but orderly methods to secure our end, it is sure to come.

This country differs in many essential respects from other countries and, as is often said, it is just the difference between our political equality and the caste conditions of other nations which elevates and enlightens the American laborer and inspires within him a feeling of pride and manhood. If I were called upon to say what, in my opinion, constitutes the strength, security and integrity of our Government, I would say the American home. It lies at the beginning; it is the foundation of a pure national life. The good home makes the good citizen, the good citizen makes wholesome public sentiment, and good government necessarily follows.

The labor of the country constitutes its strength and its wealth, and the better that labor is conditioned, the higher its rewards, the wider its opportunities and the greater its comforts and refinements, the better will be our civilization, the more sacred will be our homes, the more capable our children, and the nobler will be the destiny which awaits us.

We are all Americans, we are all sovereigns, equal in the ballot, and that citizen is the best who does his best; who follows the light as God gives him to see the light; who concedes to all the races of mankind what he claims for himself; who rigidly respects the rights of others; who is ever willing and ready to assist others; who has the best heart, the best character, the greatest charity and sympathy, and who withholds from none of his fellow-men the respect, privileges and protection he claims for himself. This is the citizenship that is the need of every age and to which we must

educate ourselves and those who are to come after us.

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WHAT THE PUBLIC APPRECIATES MOST.

THE public appreciates more and more the importance of investing money in men, not in buildings. When I hear of large gifts to erect magnificent halls at our colleges, I think what greater good would be accomplished if that money were used to help a number of deserving young men and women through their college courses. When these young people have finished their work in the world, they may each and all be able to erect fifty-thousand-dollar buildings for their alma maters. A certain generousminded man once said to me, “I have given money quite freely to help the distressed, to soften the bitterness of helpless age, and to alleviate the condition of the unfortunate; but there was little or no inspiration in it. When, on the other hand, I have helped a bright boy to secure for himself a good education, my imagination has become affected. I have seen my dollars-won by hard application, in sordid ways-transmuted into intellectual agencies powerful to affect the thoughts and feelings of generations which will live when I am dead." This sentiment is becoming prevalent among the thoughtful men of America.-Lyman J. Gage, in Success.

THIS is the home-coming time! Have you thought about everything for the health and comfort of the household through fall and winter? How about proper sanitary precautions?

You can protect the entire family by purifying the waste pipes, sinks, closets and cellars with Platt's Chlorides, the odorless disinfectant.

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