RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 190, 8 May 1940, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights On Current Events

(By

Kickshaws.)

At a recent address on diet it was stated that the choir sang “The Creation.” This must have been the prelude to the Chef D’Oeuvre. * * * The average female in New-Zealand, it is declared, is older than the male; and, of course, it can’t be just make-up. « « « Concrete workers, it is announced, have applied for a new award. At last we have run to earth whence came the first idea of a concrete proposal.

The contention on the part of the Statistics Department that persons of great age in many countries tend to exaggerate their years would certainly appear to be borne out by investigations made by experts. In some cases it is possible to investigate the birth certificates of aged people, but in most cases they were born at a time when these credentials were not required. Nevertheless, some sort of slant has been obtained as regards great age, and it is estimated that about 10 persons in every million reach the age of 100 years. At that rate there are probably alive in this world at any moment roughly 200,000 persons who have reached 100 years. Furthermore, two-thirds of these persons will be women. No good reason has been given why women reach a greater age than men. It has been thought that their more temperate and secluded mode of life has something to do with it. Certainly diet gives a conflicting result. Mr. Newgent, of New York, claimed to have reached 101 years because he never touched tobacco or alcohol: in contrast, Mrs. Belle Airington, Oklahoma, claimed to . have reached 108 because since 16 she had been addicted to beer and a pipe.

Experts who have made long and careful investigations into the age of human beings are prepared to admit that man is probably the longest lived of all mammals despite legends about the longevity of whales and elephants. Nevertheless, among the 2,000,000,000 human beings on this earth, very rarely does any one of them live longer than 106 years. Insurance actuaries who have investigated claims above this age report that provided sufficient time is devoted to the investigation the age is usually found to be incorrect. In some cases it was found that anything from 30 to 40 years had been added to the age of the individual concerned. In other cases it was a totally different individual who had modestly taken on the age of his father or brother and added it to his own. In one case, that of Catherine Countess ot Desmond, the mistake was traced to the fact that mother and child both had the same name. The mother’s birth had been recorded but not her death, and the mother’s age had been added to the child’s, and recorded at the child’s death as if the two had been one person.

Another factor that has confused the real age of some people, it was discovered by investigators, was the death of children before they grew up. A child’s birth, it was found, had been recorded. When the child died at, say, 15 j ears, the name of the dead child was given to a new baby which later in life also assumed the dead child’s years. Yet another reason why some folk in the United States of America have reached a great age was due to the fact that birth certificates were given to old folk merely on the presentation of an affidavit. As a result of these investigations and from a study of the facts as revealed today by the hundreds of millions of persons who have held life insurance policies or annuities, it is possible to be more definite. During the last 150 years actuaries declare there has not been a single instance of anyone who has lived beyond 106 years, although many did reach ages over 100 years. Moreover, it appears proved that people today do not live any shorter time than they did before. The proportion of .centenarians has probablj remained fairly constant lor man) centuries. Why some hfik live longer than others is, however, still a mystery.

Medical experts who have perform ed post-mortem examinations on individuals who claimed a great age have at any rate substantiated the claims put forward by actuaries that the age is usually exaggerated. Possibly Old Parr was the most famous case in England of a man who claimed to be 152 years old. Yet there is in existence the post-mortem report of Harvey, the doctor who discovered the secret of the circulation of the blood. This report clearly shows that Parr could not possibly have been more than 90 years of age. Furthermore, when Zaro Agha the Turk died at the reputed age of 160 years, an autopsy was made with the full consent of his daughter. It was revealed that be had suffered from uremic poisoning. His kidneys were burned out. The medical experts who conducted the post-mortem agreed that he may have been between 90 years and 100, but no more. One must admit, however, that in the case of a very old man the process of senility may have been slowed down so as to give the impression that he is younger than in reality. The age to which people live and the age to which they should live are certainly two different things. Scores of formulae have been evolved, but all of them are ' of doubtful merit. Some use as a factor the age before the reproduction functions start, others use the time involved in adolescence as, tbe factor. Francis Bacon, for example, considered that, animals live eight times as long as they take to mature. In man it was considered that 25 years represented the age of maturity. Benjamin Ward Richardson quite plausibly suggested that the combined ages of one’s parents anil grandparents divided by six, gave a very good indication of how long one might be expected to live, provided, of course, these individuals did not die a sudden death. More modern methods use an instrument which examines the structure of the eye. From this it is calculated how long one will live. Whatever method is. used, there yet remains to be explained why some living things mature quicker than others; why a mouse is old at five years, and a tortoise young at 200 years. That is the real secret of life.

“Could yon possibly tell me the correct. dress for a Dutch sailor of Hie time of, or just, after, Rembrandt'.' We are doing a play of that period but cannot, find a picture of a sailor of that time,” says “M.H.” [The Librarian, Turnbull Library, Mr. C. R. H. Taylor, kindly advises that: “A brief indication of the dress of a Dutch sailor in the middle of the seventeenth century is as follows: Hat, wide rimmed, tallish, feather nearly parallel with rim, dark in colour; shoes, heavy buckled; stockings, coarse, above knee; breeches, wide, knickerbocker type (slops), buttoned at knee or ribboned: dark or coloured doublet, or loose jacket over while or checked shirt: earrings should be worn, and perhaps a chain necklace; knife at iback of belt, pistol if desired.”]