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Show f WHY WE BEHAVE LIKE HUMAN BEINGS Br GEORGE DORSEV. Fk O, Li. D. B. ........... . . . . ,tt Death as an "Advantageous Adaptation" WEISMANN held that death Is an "advantugeous adaptation." For what? To whom? Looks like nonsense. non-sense. Osier said that man Is as old as bis arteries. There was enough truth In this to make It take. It means even less to say that man la as old as hla endocrine glands. Arteries aud glands are as old as the man. MetchlnlkolT held that because of "dlEhnrmonle" In the body, the phagocytes phag-ocytes devoted too much time to eating eat-ing pigment In hair and loo little to the bacterial flora of our digestive tract, ltesult : fermentation, poison, death. , Puberty Is a period, but a kind ot sex life begins nt birth; for many, real sexuul maturity never comes. So : It Is with adults; some are more adult In body and mind at fifteen than ot h- j era at thirty-five; some hurry through to senility before body and mind have become fully adult. Normal old ago la physiological ; It Is no more a disease than adolescence, and should be as agreeable, lu pathologic old age, senility senil-ity is premature and is a disease. The seat of the disease may be anywhere or may be due to some bacterial Infection. In-fection. In natural death, we die by Inches. But while there Is only one path by which we may enter the world, a Pearl points out In bis remarkable book on death, there are many that lead to the Klver Styx. Death does not strike at random, but In an orderly or-derly way and there are ninny ways of dying. We die when an essential part of our body breaks down. From an analysis of the mortality tables of England and Wales, the United States, and Sao I'aulo, Brazil, Pearl found that over half the deaths In all three countries are due to faulty wind and food canals. While both canals are Inside the body, they come In contact with air, food and water from the outside The skin also Is exposed to the world, but It Is armor-plate armor-plate against foreign Invasion. . Wind and food canals have no such protecting protect-ing layer of pavement cells as has the skin. Outer skin and lining of wind and food canals constitute the body's first line of defense aguinst invasion of bacteria. The next chief cause of death is the circulatory system; the blood is tbo body's second line ot defense. When the first fulls to check the enemy, the way to the blood Is open. Hence the great port played by the clrculntory system as the second great cause of death. A Pearl says, we should live much longer If our lungs were as good as our heart. The death rates show certain Important Im-portant age and sex fluctuations. Early lnfuncy deaths are heavy. There is then a sharp drop until the 10-15-year period, when the rate begins to rise to the 20-25-yenr period. Thereafter There-after the rate rises slowly until the D0-5o-year period, when It begins to rise again rapidly. Nearly 60 per cent of the deaths were from organs derived from the en-doderm. en-doderm. or Inner germ-layer the layer that originally was outside the body. In the developing embryo thnt layer comes to he folded within the borly and lines the food canal and accessory organs ot digestion. It Is an old-fashioned, out-of-date relic of nntedlluvl-nn nntedlluvl-nn ectoderm. As a lining for the food canal It Is our weakest spot. Oiir strongest spots are the skin cover of our body and our nervous system. Both are derived from the ectoderm or outer germ-layer. Deaths from structures derived from this layer make np only about 10 per cent of the total. Almost no germs get through a healthy skin. The cells of skin and nerves have differei ,nted most from their primitive structure. The remaining 3D per cent of deaths are from the mesoderm or middle germ-lnyer, clreulntory and urogenital systems and muscles. The breakdown of fhe female reproductive organism Is also a heavy factor In Infant mortality. mortal-ity. While mortality due to breakdown In ectoderm organs Is about the same for the two sexes, female mortaUty from mesoderm is as great ns from endo-derm endo-derm breakdown twenty years before it is In mules. Death comes, then, according to Pearl, because our bodies are made up of systems specialized in structure and function. In becoming specialized, their cells have become so differentiated differenti-ated that they have lost the power of Indefinite and Independent existence. Thus the cells lining our lungs can be nourished only If the cells of the food tract end the blood keep on the 1oh Some system are beitpr mnrla Job. Some systems are better made than others. The brain outwears the heart, the heart outwears the lungs. The striking agreement as to the causes of death which Pearl finds in such dissimilar countries as England, the United Stntes, snd Sao Puulo, force him to conclude that Innate constitutional con-stitutional factors, along with environmental environ-mental factors, largely determine rates of human mortality. In certain diseases dis-eases of course, environment Is the important factor. The causes of death. Pearl finds, are In the following descending order; respiratory res-piratory system; digestive system; circulatory cir-culatory system and blood; nervous system and sense organs; kidneys and related excretory organs; sex organs; skeletal and muscular system; skin; endocrine organs. () by George A. Dorsey.) |