Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 22, January, 1873Various
Science
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 22, January, 1873
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
The greatest number of marriages for men take place between the ages of
twenty and twenty-five in England, between twenty five and thirty in
France, and between twenty-five and thirty-five in Italy and Belgium.
Finally, in Hungary the number of individuals who marry is seventy-two
in a thousand each year; in England it is 64; in Denmark, 59; in France,
57, the city of Paris showing 53; in the Netherlands, 52; in Belgium,
43; in Norway, 36. Widowers indulge in second marriages three or four
times as often as widows. For example, in England (land of Mrs. Bardell)
there are 66 marriages of widowers against 21 of widows; in Belgium
there are 48 to 16; in France, 40 to 12. Old Mr. Weller's paternal
advice, to "beware of the widows," ought surely to be supplemented by a
maxim to beware of widowers.
SHAKESPEARE, in one of his most famous madrigals, draws a vivid contrast
between youth and age, which, he declares, "cannot live together:"
Youth like summer morn,
Age like winter weather,
Youth like summer brave,
Age like winter bare:
Youth is hot and bold,
Age is weak and cold.
Science, which ruthlessly destroys so much poetry by its mattock and
spade, its scales, foot-rules and gauges, must now, we should judge,
take grave exception to the preceding bit of poesy and to the thousand
repetitions of its sentiment by the bards of all ages. By means of a
thermometer lately constructed to register with exactitude the degree of
heat in the human body, it is found, after numerous experiments under
varying circumstances, that the instrument marks 37.08° of heat on an
average for persons between twenty-one and thirty years of age, while it
marks 37.46° for people aged eighty. In face of this fact what becomes
of the "fervors of youth" and the "chills of age"? The highest average
temperatures in the human body, as indicated by this gauge, are those
which exist from birth to puberty--that is to say, 37.55° and 37.63°.
From the latter epoch the heat gradually lowers, to rise again with the
first approach of old age. Thus childhood shows the highest temperature,
old age the next, and middle life the lowest. We may add that the
greatest variations in the temperature of the body between health and
sickness are only a few tenths of a degree, according to this
measurement; for, the normal condition being 37.2° or 37.3°, an increase
to 38° would mark a burning fever, and a decrease to 36° would note the
icy approach of death. Hereafter, though we may graciously excuse to
poetic license the assertion that
Crabbed Age and Youth
Cannot live together,
we must yet sternly protest that the reason assigned--namely, that
"youth is hot and age is cold"--is contradicted by the facts of science.
LITERATURE OF THE DAY.
The Life of Charles Dickens. By John Forster. Vol. II. Philadelphia:
J.B. Lippincott & Co.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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