TO LENGTHEN HUMAN LIFE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 74, 23 April 1909, Page 4

TO LENGTHEN HUMAN LIFE

Have lii'n insurance companies a neglected duty to perforin in the direction of attempting to lengthen human lite 1 Fire insurance companies take steps to prevent tires. This they do for purely selfish reasons. Is there nil <n.««gy between the relationship of lira insurance offices and fires and the relationship between life assurance societies .n.u ..oration of life » The subject was recently raised by Dr. Irving Fisher, of Yale University, in an address before Vile Association of Life Insurance Presidents. Jn tiiis he urged the advisability of insurance companies taking an active part in the crusade against tuberculosis and other preventable diseases. He contended that any money expended in educating the public along the lines of modern hygiene would be returned many times over to the policy holders, to say nothing of the enormous economic gains to the country at large. Dr. Fisher, who has I n Professor of Political economy of Yale since. 1898, is president of the committee of one hundred on national health, which is carrying on an extensive movement throughout the country to improve living conditions. His address was delivered to practical insurance men, company presidents, medical directors and acturies, while included in the audience were also physicians and others prominent in the present antituberculosis movement. Among other i tilings he said : " Should life insurance companies seriously take up the work of lengthening human life, they would make, I believe, the greatest step forward ever taken in the prolongation of life. The nearest analogy is perhaps to be found in the work of fire companies in reducing the number of fires, tint it is, I believe, the general truth that the best success of any movement is found only when, in a sense, it reaches the commercial stage—in other words when it is made to pay in some tangible way," The professor then proceeds to details. He shows that if we take the life tables for different periods for England, France, Prussia, Denmark, Sweden, and Massachusetts, we find that human life lengthened during the seventeenth and oigh tcenth centuries at the rate of about four years per century ; that during the first tliiocquartcrs of the nineteenth century it lengthened at the rate ot nine years per century; that at the present it is lengthened in Europe generally at the rate of seventeen years per century, and in Prussia (which is perhaps the heme of preventive medicine) at the rate of twenty-seven years per century. A report which the doctor compiled for the conversation commission based on dafa contributed from acknowledged American authorities, shows that human life in America could , by,the adoption of hygenic reforms already known and entirely practicable, lie lengthened by over one-third—that is, over 15 years. This calculation hns been made very conservatively. The statistics and estimates on which is is based have been taken from published sources, as well us contributed by sonic two-score American authorities —medical, ncturial, and hygenic Tuberculosis is known to be preventable. In Dr. Fisher's table it is entered as 75 per cent, preventable ; pneumonia as 45 per cent, preventable, typhoid n s 85 per cent. ; diphtheria, 70 'per cent. These figures are among the highest allowed. Many diseases, such as cancer, are recorded in the table as zero percent, •preventable, although the best expert opinion would allow some degree of prevnitnbilily if prevention begins early I enough in life.

On the basis of these ratios of provenlability, or rather poslponalnlity, ol death has been compiled the possible extension of the average human life by saving lives now lost by preventable diseases. This calculation is made on the assumption that those thus saved from death enjoy ns their new lease of life onlv the expectation of life now belongin to their respective ages. This assumption is very conservative, for it means that lives'once saved shall receive no further benefits from improved mortality. The doctor is of opinion that at least eight years could he added to human life by securing reasonably pure air, water, and milk alone. \y e should like to have th;. opinion of some local insurance authorities on the feasibleness of such a scheme here.