HEALTH OF FARMERS

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 27, 1876

HEALTH OF FARMERS.

The Massachusetts Board of Health is out with its fourth annual report, in which is to be found an interesting paper on the longevity of the farmer's life. It says the evidence collected from country physicians throughout the State for the last twenty-eight years shows that the average length of the life of a farmer in that State is fifty-five and a fourth years. This is much longer than that of any other class of citizens. The class most nearly approaching farmers, viz., out-door mechanics, live only fifty-two and a half years on an average.

The almost unanimous belief of those physicians and the compiler of the paper is, that farmers might live much longer than they do by exercising more care in choosing, cooking and eating their food, in avoiding over-work and exposure to change of weather and the use of foul drinking water. Their food consists too much of pork, pies, and saleratus bread and cakes. The cookery is bad, and meals are eaten too quickly for good digestion when work hurries. More vegetables and fruit should be eaten and more rest taken. More cleanliness, as regards out-houses, sinks, and back yards, should be observed, and more care taken to avoid leaving cess-pools, sinks, etc., nearer to a well than thirty feet at least.