The French savans are not content with saying this. They are very indignant at Wroblewski stealing Cailletet’s crown just as it was going to be placed on the Frenchman’s head. It was sharp practice, for all that a scientific discoverer has to look to is the fame which he wins among men. The Academy took no notice of the interloping Poles, but awarded to Cailletet the Lacaze Prize, their secretary, M. Dumas, then lying sick at Cannes, expressing their opinion in the last letter he ever wrote. “It is Cailletet’s apparatus,” says M. Dumas, “which enabled the others to do what he was on the point of accomplishing. He, therefore, deserves the credit of invention; the others are merely clever and successful manipulators. What has been done is a great fact in the history of science, and it will link the name of Cailletet with those of Lavoisier and Faraday,” So far M. Dumas, who might, one fancies, have said something for Pictet, only a fortnight behind Cailletet in the experiment which practically liquefied oxygen. His case is quite different from Wroblewski’s, for he and Cailletet had been working quite independently, just as Leverrier and Adams had been when both discovered the new planet Neptune. Such coincidences so often happen when the minds of men are turned to the same subject. Well, the scientific world is satisfied now that the elements of air can be liquefied; but I want to see the air itself liquefied, as what it is—a mechanical, not a chemical compound. For from such liquefaction, one foresees a great many useful results. You might carry your air about with you to the bottom of mines or up in balloons; you might even, perhaps, store up enough by-and-by to last for a voyage to the moon.—All the Year Round.
[THE HEALTH AND LONGEVITY OF THE JEWS.]
BY P. KIRKPATRICK PICARD, M.D., M.R.C.S.
In these days, when sanitation claims a large share of attention, and when questions relating to the public health are canvassed and discussed on all sides, it may be of service to ask what lessons are to be learned from the diet, habits, and customs of the Jews. It is not generally known that their health and longevity are superior to those of other races, a fact which has been noted by careful observers from early times in this and other countries. An experiment, extending over thousands of years, has been made as to the sanitary value of certain laws in the Mosaic code. The test has been applied in the most rigid way, and if it had failed at any period in their eventful history, their name alone, like that of the Assyrian and Babylonian, would have remained to testify to their existence as a nation. The three deadly enemies of mankind—war, famine, and pestilence—have at times been let loose upon them. They have stood firm as a rock against the crushing power of oppression, when exercised at the call of political or religious antipathy. They have been pursued with relentless persecution, from city to city, and from one country to another, in the name of our holy religion. Restricted as to their trade, singled out to bear the burden of special taxation, confined in the most miserable and unhealthy quarters of the towns where they were permitted to dwell, living in the constant fear of robbery without redress, of violence without succor, of poverty without relief, of assaults against their persons, honor, and religion without hope of protection; in spite of woe after woe coming upon them, like the waves of a pitiless sea, they have not been broken to pieces and swallowed up, leaving not a wreck behind. No other race has had the fiery trials that they have gone through, yet, like the three Hebrew youths in the furnace, the smell of fire is not found on them. To-day their bodily vigor is unequalled, and their moral and mental qualities are unsurpassed.
How has it happened that, after being compassed about for centuries with so many troubles, they have at the present time all the requisites that go to form a great nation, and are, in numbers, energy, and resources, on a level with their forefathers in the grandest period of their history? It is not enough to say that all this has come to pass according to the will of God, and that their continued existence is owing to His intervention on their behalf. No doubt it is a miracle in the sense that it is contrary to all human experience, for no other nation has lived through such perilous times of hardship and privation. But as it was in the wilderness so it has been in all their wanderings down the stream of time; the miracle was supplemented by the use of means, without which God’s purpose regarding them would have failed. The blessing of long life and health, promised to them by the mouth of Moses, has not been withheld. Several texts might be quoted, but one will suffice. In Deuteronomy iv. 40, we read, “Thou shall keep therefore his statutes, and his commandments, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, for ever.” With a promise so rich with blessing, conditional on their obedience, they have through all the ages been monuments of God’s faithfulness, and are to this day in the enjoyment of its advantages.
The following statistics, for which I am indebted to the kindness of Dr. A. Cohen, who has collected them from different sources, will serve to prove their superiority in respect of health and longevity. In the town of Fürth, according to Mayer, the average duration of life amongst the Christians was 26 years, and amongst the Jews 37 years. During the first five years of childhood the Christian death-rate was 14 per cent. and the Jewish was 10 per cent. The same proportion of deaths, it is said, exists in London. Neufville has found that in Frankfort the Jews live eleven years longer than the Christians, and that of those who reach the age of 70 years 13 are Christians and 27 are Jews. In Prussia, from 1822 to 1840, it has been ascertained that the Jewish population increased by 3-1/2 per cent. more than the Christian, there being 1 birth in 28 of the Jews to 1 in 25 of the Christians, and 1 death in 40 of the Jews to 1 in 34 of the Christians.
These data are sufficient to verify the statement that the Jews are endowed with better health and greater longevity than Christians. It will therefore be inferred that some peculiarity exists which gives them more power of resisting disease, and renders them less susceptible to its influence. In virtue of this property their constitution readily accommodates itself to the demands of a climate which may be too severe for other non-indigenous races. Take as an example the statistics of the town of Algiers in 1856. Crebassa gives the following particulars—Of Europeans there were 1,234 births and 1,553 deaths; of Mussulmans 331 births and 514 deaths; of Jews 211 births and 187 deaths. These numbers afford a remarkable illustration of the “survival of the fittest.”
Their unusual freedom from disease of particular kinds has been often noticed, and amounts nearly to immunity from certain prevalent maladies, such as those of the scrofulous and tuberculous type, which are answerable for about a fifth of the total mortality. Their comparative safety in the midst of destructive epidemics has often been the subject of comment, and was formerly used as evidence against them, on the malicious charge of disseminating disease. At the present day, and in consonance with the spirit of the age, the matter has come within the scope of the scientific inquirer, with the view of ascertaining the cause of this exceptional condition.
A peculiarity of this sort must lie in the nature of things in the distinctive character of their food, habits, and customs. Their more or less strict adherence to the requirements of the Mosaic law, and to the interpretation of it given in the Talmud, are familiar to all who come in contact with them. To this code we must therefore look for an explanation of the facts under review; and here it may be stated that no prominence is given to one set of laws over another. They all begin with the formula, “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,” thus making no difference in point of importance between the laws of worship and those of health. These latter, therefore, carried with them the sanctions of religion, and were as much a matter of obligation as any other religious duty. It will thus be easily seen how the interweaving of the several laws relating to health and worship had the effect of giving equal permanence to both, so that as long as the one was observed the other would be in force. Though many of the details might appear arbitrary, a fuller knowledge of sanitary science has revealed a meaning not recorded in the sacred text. Moses, who was versed in all the learning of the Egyptians, was evidently acquainted with the laws of health, which he embodied in his code under divine direction. Those who are firm believers in the inspiration of the Scriptures will have no difficulty in believing that principles, given by God for the preservation of the health of the Israelite in olden times, and to which he is still obedient with great apparent benefit, are likely to be beneficial in their effect on the general community. Truths of this kind are like the laws of nature, universally applicable. They never grow old by lapse of time or effete by force of circumstances.
This part of the Mosaic code is mainly concerned with details relating to food, cleanliness, the prevention of disease, and the disinfection of diseased persons and things. The Jews observe in eating flesh-food the great primary law, which was given to Noah after the Flood (Gen. ix. 4): “But the flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat,” It was enforced in the Mosaic dispensation (Lev. xvii. 10), under the penalty of being cut off for disobedience, and in the Christian era was confirmed at the Council of Jerusalem (Acts xv. 20), when the Apostle James, as president, gave sentence that the Gentiles who are turned to God should abstain from blood. To this day the animal (whether beast or bird) is killed with a sharp knife in such a way that the large blood vessels in the neck discharge the blood most freely, and so drain the flesh to the utmost extent possible, and as an additional precaution the veins, which in certain places are difficult to empty, are removed before the part can be used as food; so that it would appear every needful measure is adopted to prevent the ingestion of the forbidden fluid. On this account game that is shot is not eaten by the orthodox Jew, as the blood is retained by that mode of death.