Albert Benoît Marie Lancaster

“ Become an astronomer, if you wish to live long. We will add, whoever follows this counsel will not only see the limits of his life far removed, but he will also find in the study and contemplation of the heavenly bodies a satisfaction more durable than any earthly pleasures.—Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from Ciel et Terre. ”

“ It is easy to believe that some professions would have the general effect of increasing the probable duration of life, while others would abridge it. It is generally admitted that men devoted to scientific pursuits enjoy the expectation of a considerably longer life than the average. We have been curious enough to inquire how much foundation for this opinion there is in the case of astronomers, whose observations, calculations, and studies imperiously require a quiet, sedentary, and regular life. ”

“ The excitement of the life of our age and the consequent diminution of its length have been frequently spoken of. We do not live as long as formerly, it is said, but we live more rapidly. The latter hypothesis may be true, but the former one is certainly false, as statistics have demonstrated for the present century. In Belgium, among other countries, the mean of life, which, during the period from 1841 to 1845, was thirty-one years and three months, was lengthened to thirty-three years in the lustrum from 1871 to 1875. ”