The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 1913. HEALTH AND CHEERFULNESS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 19, 21 January 1913, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 1913. HEALTH AND CHEERFULNESS.

Investigations recently made in England demonstrate the rather remarkable fact that in spite of the great reduction in the general death-rate following the great improvements that have been effected in the social and sanitary conditions affecting the people, the death-rate among men between the ages of forty-five and sixtyfive is increasing. Taking the annual report of Dr. Newsholme, medical ofcer of health for the London Local Government Board, an analysis of the general death-rate for the two sexes shows, ho says, that the improvement in mortality has not taken place at all periods of life, the higher ages participating in it little or not at all. This seemed of such significance that a special enquiry was made, and as a result it may be said that, owing to the rapidly increasing aggregation of population in towns and the associated industrial conditions, we age rapidly after forty, the result of the stress of modern life. Man, it is commonly said by doctors, is as old as his blood-vessels. Our blood-vessels begin to give out at forty-five to-day, or, in the language of the profession, “we become prematurely old through arterial degeneration.” “The facts supplied by the national statistics given in the report speak eloquently enough,” says the ‘Daily News,’ “and hustling city men should remember that they will not know of the degeneration of their arterial system till it breaks down suddenly, say, through inflammation of the lungs following a chill. It appears it is not the inflammation which kills them, but the heart, overtaxed for years, in circulating with more and more difficulty the blood in a body which gets plenty of wear but little repair, and finding a new burden is placed upon it, stops.” Taking the main results of the tables given in the report, which compare the percentage reduction or increase in the death-rates between 1841-15 and 1906-10, we find that in the later period at ages under live somewhat more reduction has occurred among female than male children. Between five and thirty-five years of age reductions have occurred varying at different ages, and in the two sexes from 44 to 65 par cent.—a vast improvement. But between thirty-five and forty-five the anxiety and bustle of business life apparently begin to tell, for a muchj

greater improvcmcjit is soon in the ioniiilo than in the male rate (38 as

against 23 per cent.)- Both in men and women disease of the heart and blood vessels wore the registered cause of about one-third of the total deaths between the ages of 55 and 65. Dr. T.

Y\ T . Andrews was requested by tiro Local Government Board to investigate arterial degeneration and its premature occurrence. In Ins exhaustive icport he says there can be no question that the strain of a persistently high blood pressure is a fertile cause of premature age. The wearing out cl arteries is accelerated by mechanical strain (such as anxiety and an active mind would induce) causing high blood pressure. The ‘Ball iMali also discussed the report and says: “We :I >- torpret strain to mean hard work or rapid work; we are probably elf the track in this connection. It is well io keep in mind the adage that worry, and not work, is the deadly enemy ot human peace, and logevity. We do more work, certainly, than our fathers, but we have also greater facilities for doing it. To find the seeds of premature senility and collapse we must look not so much at the work as at the conditions which invest it. What arc the worries, then, that distinguish our modern life? One of the foremost is overcrowding. Nothing frets the nerves so much as having other people always in the way. W r e are heaped together in the street, in conveyances, in offices and factories, and in homes which for the majority arc too small. There is another element, however, in the wearing-out of hu-

inanity, and that is the quality of its emotions. Cheerfulness and health generally go together, and the note cl cheerfulness in contemporary life is neither full nor strong. In the literature of the day we find existence painted in predominant tints of pathos: life is presented as a problem, if not actually as a menace. r l his is due partly, and it may he chiefly, to the besetting anxieties of the wage-earn-er—the conditions which keep the nightmare of unemployment so constantly beside him and make his subsistence dependent on the hazard of forces beyond his control. Economic anxiety is certainly a most pervasive element. Our problem is to level the track—to spread out the clustered copulation, to diminish the friction ■ 1 the senses, to build stronger and broader foundations of economic security. These are not tasks for a day or for a generation. But a warning likeJ Dr. Newsholme’s reminds us that they bear very directly upon the simplesi elements of life—its length and its value. Men will live longer when they live more cheerfully,” adds the ‘Pal' Mall.’ “One of the chiefest ends of government is the greatest cheerfulness of the greatest number.”