Abstract
Longevity and the factors it involves are very relevant to the business of life insurance. Heredity and environment are the major factors, although the relative importance of each has been disputed. It has been said in the past, and the argument is still heard, that there is no reason, given ideal conditions, why men and women should not live well past 100 years. Several biological analogies have been quoted in support of this contention; Fisher mentions two relevant experiments.1 The first showed no natural death in a culture of Paramecium in 8500 generations, equal to 250,000 years of human life, the culture thriving as well at the end as at the beginning of the experiment. The second was performed in the 19th century by Alexis Carrel, a French biologist, who claimed that fibroblasts taken from the heart of a chick embryo could be kept alive indefinitely, by washing out the poisons generated by the life process, and by protecting them against infection and food deficiency.
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© 2006 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Brackenridge, R.D.C. (2006). The Concept of Health and Disease. In: Brackenridge, R.D.C., Croxson, R.S., MacKenzie, R. (eds) Brackenridge’s Medical Selection of Life Risks. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-72324-9_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-72324-9_15
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