Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

true physician what experience teaches me of the physical conditions induced by the excessive and useless exercises of labor to which the younger and as yet better brains of our community are subjected. I am but telling the experience of other members of my profession who feel as I do, if they do not express themselves so freely. After a lecture I once delivered in one of our large provincial towns, and in which I spoke what I have here committed to paper, one of the eminent physicians of the place came to me afterwards to thank me for the statement, and to give me the following personal experience. My own son,' he said, 'a youth of good intellectual parts, made up his mind to go in for his degree at the university,'-meaning the university in which, in this kingdom, the process of intellectual destruction is most scientifically and systematically carried out,-' and determined also, if it were possible, to win a good place in the lists of honor. He worked through all the preliminary grades with untiring industry, taking no rest and unable to find time for any. He went in for his great effort, lost, and now is wandering on the Continent utterly broken down mentally and physically, more than an idiot, for the time, though a youth of good intellectual capacity, originally on whom every expense has been bestowed to insure for him a good education.' These results of their system they who plan and carry out the examination do not see. They are intent only on the sustainment of what they honestly consider to be the credit of the university and the maintenance of its high character, so that none but the brightest scholars should appear on the rolls of its graduates. The examiners look purely, as is their duty, for the direct efficiency of those who come before them for examination. Neither manager nor examiner can ask after the antecedents of those whom they take in charge. They do not know that the student may be the subject of tubercular diathesis, of heart-disease, or brain affection, and that out of every dozen students one, at least, will be under some such disqualifying hereditary influence. They proceed, adding difficulties upon difficulties, as if every student had the same stamina and the same capacity."— The Sanitary Record.

Health and Hygiene.

The whole number of deaths in the city of Philadelphia for the week ending at noon Saturday, December 22, was 391, showing a falling off of 29 deaths as compared with those reported for

the preceding week, and 147 less than those reported for the corresponding period last year. There were 114 deaths of children under five years of age. The causes of death were as follows:

[blocks in formation]

The number of new cases of diphtheria, scarlet fever, and typhoid fever, and the deaths resulting therefrom for the past two weeks, were as follows:

[blocks in formation]

SHE IS 106 YEARS OF AGE.

Mrs. Hannah Chard, born April 28, 1788, and now living 12 miles south of Woodbury, N. J. In this picture she is standing beside her youngest son, Joel Chard, 70 years of age. Mrs. Chard was nearly 12 when General Washington died. We are under obligations for the photograph to Dr. J. A. Wamsley, of 1838 Diamond Street, who recently made it.

[graphic]
[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][merged small][merged small]

N proportion as the human race fear death do they cling to life, and anything that gives hope of continued existence in this world is of surpassing interest. It is ever a matter of congratulation and of hope to survey examples of longevity. Perhaps the most remarkable case now extant is that of Rev. Samuel Wakefield, D.D., LL.D., of West Newton, Westmoreland County, Pa.

The above sketch is from a photograph taken at the golden wedding of his oldest son, August 31, 1894, and represents the five generations now living of the Wakefield family. Rev. Dr. Wakefield is 96, his wife is 92, his oldest son, David, is 72, David's oldest daughter, Mrs. J. E. Nutt, is 49, and her daughter, Mrs. Pelton, is 28. Pelton's two children are about 6 and 4 respectively. These make the five generations of the picture.

Of Dr. Wakefield's ancestors, his father lived to 85, his mother to 78 years. He has one sister living at 84. His eldest sister died in infancy. Seven of his brothers and sisters, now dead, reached an average age of 75 years.

His grandfather lived 78 years, and his grandmother died at the ripe old age of 91. The average of the eight children of his grandfather's family at death was 85 years, the oldest, Joanna Carroll, reaching her hundredth year.

All the children of the Rev. Dr. Wakefield are living, except

ΙΟ

133

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »