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8
greatest number died during the last decade or attained
70 years of age and upwards. A note attached to the
table shows numerous examples of extreme old age.
I consider about two-thirds of the infantile mortality
attributable to neglect, improper feeding, impure air
from over-crowding, and general bad management
through ignorance and carlessness of parents and nurses,
and therefore preventible; the other third is caused by
natural and congenital weakness, or uncontrolable
disease. The great desideratum is to continue good
health into old age, and that health may be preserved
and life prolonged by the exercise of those means which
reason, education, and experience indicate as correct
is unquestionable. That the converse of this is also true
is demonstrated by every day observation of the
destruction of health, and consequent premature termination
of life by our own voluntary acts, in our mode of
living. On the other hand, it is not possible, for
individuals or their offspring, in the course of one or
two generations only—however well they may shape
their course of life, however conducive it may be to the
maintenance of health and prolongation of life—to
advance the tissues and organs of the body to a degree
of physiological perfection sufficient to inevitably ensure
long and vigorous life—such a result can only be
attained by slow degrees, by systematic and subjective
means—the primary and most essential element in such
a system would be rational selection in marriages,
influenced, among other points, by personal and hereditary
considerations in regard to physical and mental
health.
Exceptional old age is almost invariably peculiar to
certain families, and the old age attained by most, or
many of their members, may be traced in its rise and
fall in the different branches, in proportion to their intermixture
with less long lived families; so that if it were