Increasing Longevity

In a recent number of the London Lancet, Dr. W. Ainslie Hollis gives reasons for the belief that the life of human beings is growing longer. Within the last half century, according to the records of the British general registry office, what is termed “the middle arch of life” has been advanced from forty years to nearly fifty years. This means that fifty years ago, of one million persons born at the same time, one-half were dead by the time the rest had reached their fortieth year, while now the equality in numbers between the living and the dead is not reached till the forty-ninth year. “This means,” says Dr. Hollis, “an enormous improvement in the health of the nation and a corresponding delay in the manifestations of senility, inasmuch as they mainly depend upon various structural defects due to unhealthy surroundings.” Speaking on the same subject, namely, what may or may not lengthen one’s years, Nicola Tesla, the celebrated electrician, offers this singular view. He thinks that a man has just so many hours to be awake, and the fewer he uses up each day the more days will they last. “I believe,” he adds, “that a man who slept most of the time might live 200 years.”

It is doubtful, though, if a busy man like Tesla, would consent to experiment on his own theory.