Show L Lengthening g Lifes Life's Span r 1 IS a pretty puzzling p problem to decide e IT FIS whether mankind should let nature take its courSe course or bend every every effort to extend life's lifes es e's span pan There can be no disagreement Ion on on the point that all aU who can contribute in jn any measure Ue to make life happier more mor purposeful fuller f ler richer mo more e abundant and r rewarding warding should pursue th these e aims and enterprises to the uttermost limits of at their genius imagination and capacity to labor laborInS laborin in InS humanity's behalf There are scientists and p philosophers who can look upon living lively and arrive at what they conclude is an ideal d al alor or socially desirable age at which to die This may not probably does doe not reflect their personal inclinations Dr Osler Osier lived to be 70 10 t though ugh he if memory se serves set et 60 as the age for chloroform It seems to depend on whose life is being considered Thoughts ab about u old age pensions may change opinions too But the Metropolitan Metropolitan Life Insurance rance company comes f forward with the statement that an expectation ex ox- of life at birth of years f for r both combined is shown in a life table tabie which f for the first t time in history 1 in 1 tb the Unit United d St States ta takes as its base the mortality statistics of all aU 48 states of at the union Thirty-five Thirty years ago when the first life table for any considerable part of this country was c constructed life expectancy expectancy ex ex- ex- ex was set at nt years Thus a child born a generation ago had a life expectation 12 years shorter than one born today Then out of every 1000 children born died before completing completing com corn their first year of life Now the future is 53 per th thousand In 1901 out of 1000 children n born would die before age 25 Now the age has ha been advanced to 52 years All An this has resulted from a third of a century's century's century's cen cen- tury's public hea health th work against communicable diseases tuberculosis and other diseases of child child- hood According to the life table of 1901 one- one half of the children born in that year would have died by age 58 and three-quarters three by age 74 But now one-half one will die at age 68 and three-quarters three at age 78 Insurance statisticians comment One hundred bundred hundred hun bun dred and fifty tifty years is a relatively short period in the life of a nation nation but but in iii this time a veritable veritable ver ver- miracle h has s' s been worked in preserving and extending human life and sustaining it for productive work and for the enjoyment of a full fulland fulland fulland and rounded existence One point is that tha all of this is desirable and that as life in itt every way possible is made better the life span is made longer Now if an economic effort could only keep pace with the health sciences |