LONGER LIVES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 179, 30 June 1937, Page 10

LONGER LIVES

PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. ECONOMIC ASPECTS.Dr. Johnathan Aleakins, Professor of Medicine at AlcGill University, Montreal, Canada, in an address at Sydney recently on the progress of medicine, said that with the progress of medical science life was being prolonged. The average expecta.ncy of life 100 years ago had been 40 years, now it was about 60, and it was becoming greater. The discoveries of Pasteur and Lister had revolutionised medical practice and had placed it possibly 300 years in advance of other sciences, lie said. Epidemic and endemic diseases had been practically wiped out. AVithin the last few yearn diphtheria had been conquered and almost eliminated in communities which adopted protection treatment in a wholesale manner. Most of the known parasitical a.nd epidemic diseases had been, successfully combated.

Infant mortality, which not very long ago had been regarded ns “a visitation of God,” was now known to bo the product of ignorance and uncleanliness, and it was being dealt with accordingly. The rate of infant mortality was now only a fraction of what it used to he, and it was steadily becoming less. Dr. Meakins said that even tuberculosis was being conquered. There were large areas in the United states and Canada where the necessity for sanatoria, or consumptive hospitals, no longer existed, and the T.B. wards of great public hospitals were being converted to other purposes. Diabetes had been so effectively treated by insulin and the life of patients was so prolonged that they now died of premature old age rather than from diabetes. The life of the diabetic sufferer had been prolonged bv from 10 to lo years. Aledical research was now being directed to the treatment of valvular diseases of the heart, rheumatism and other individual diseases which, whim not “killers,” made old age wearisome. Improvement in individual health and the increased efficiency of the public health services, however, raised grave economic questions. Now when a man or woman became ill the problem was not so much how long tho patient would live, but how soon lie or she would he able to earn their living and enjoy life Medical clinics now regarded illness as a tax directly or indirectly on the community. As the me and earning ca.pacity of older men was being increased and prolonged so younger men became increasingly impatient and complained of the older men clinging to jobs so that young men could not get married and have children It might be that economically the old men were not so efficient as the younger men,, but frequently the acquired ability and dexterity of the older men more than counteracted the greater energy of the younger men. Hence, the older men were able to hold on to their jobs by doing their, work satisfactorily. Increased longevity thus became an important problem to young men and to Governments.