So many cases of great longevity have recently been announced, that their detailed publication would be tedious. The New York Sun says: “A town in Cuba prides itself upon being the home of eleven women, each of whom is over 100 years of age.” According to the census of Germany, December, 1875, there were 160 persons over 100 years of age, of whom there was one woman of 115 years, and another of 117, one man of 118, and another of 120. Our own country has a better record of longevity than this.
Let us rest content with the fact that the world has many centenarians, and that we too are free to live a hundred years, if our ancestors have done their duty in transmitting a good constitution, and we have done our duty in preserving it.
Miscellaneous Intelligence.
An Important Discovery.—In the New Education I have endeavored to show that there are qualities of the atmosphere which science has not yet recognized, which are of the highest importance to human health, and that an atmosphere may have vitalizing or devitalizing qualities with apparently the same chemical composition, because some vitalizing element has been added or subtracted.
This vitalizing element, though analogous to electricity, is not identical with it. We find it absent in a room that has been recently plastered, and is not quite dry. Sleeping in such a room is positively dangerous. We find the same negative depressing condition wherever evaporation has been going on in the absence of sunlight, which appears to supply the needful element.
As evaporation carries off this vitalizing element, precipitation or condensation seems to supply it, especially precipitation from the upper regions of the atmosphere to which it is carried by evaporation, and to which it is supplied by sunshine. Hence we experience a delightful freshness of the atmosphere after a summer shower, or on a frosty morning, when the moisture is not only precipitated, but condensed into frost. Frost gives off more of the exhilarating element of watery vapor than dew, because it is a step farther in condensation. Hence there is a healthful, bracing influence in cold climates, where all the moisture is firmly frozen, and a very unpleasant, depressing influence when a thaw begins. The vicinity of melting snow, or a melting iceberg, is unpleasant and promotive of catarrh and pulmonary diseases.
The pleasant influence of the fresh shower ceases when the fallen moisture begins to evaporate, and the dewy freshness of the early morn before sunrise ceases as the dew evaporates. The most painfully depressing atmosphere is that which sometimes comes in cold weather from Northern regions which have long been deprived of sunshine.
This element of health, which physiologists have neglected to investigate, has recently been sought by Dr. B. W. Richardson of England. The Popular Science News (of Boston) says:—
“Dr. B. W. Richardson of England, in making some investigations upon the physiological effects of breathing pure oxygen by various animals, has discovered, that, by simply passing the gas a few times through the lungs, it becomes “devitalized,” or incapable of supporting life, although its chemical composition remains the same, and all carbonic dioxide and other impurities are removed. He also found, that, by passing electric sparks through the gas, it became “revitalized,” and regained its usual stimulating effect upon the animal economy. The devitalized oxygen would still support life in cold-blooded animals, and combustible bodies would burn in it as brilliantly as ever. Dr. Richardson considers that, while the gas is in contact with the tissues or blood of a warm-blooded animal, some quality essential to its life-supporting power is lost. The subject is an interesting and important one, and deserves a more thorough investigation.”