Moscow.
Prof. Isaac Gelman, noted Jewish scientist and head of the Pathophysiological Clinic at the Institute of Experimental Medicine here, is engaged on research work with a view to discovering means of prolonging the normal span of life. He believes that it is possible for man to live to the age of 120 and even 150, and that it is due to abnormal reasons that the present span of life is so much less.
Prof. Metchnikoff, the great Russian scientist, showed by his researches many years ago that the cause of premature senility and premature death is in the septic bacteria which produces harmful poisons in the testines and he discovered that sour milk was a remedy against this, because the milk bacteria destroy the other bacteria, and thus were an aid to longevity.
In the course of time science has discovered, however, that sour milk is not a hundred per cent reliable. It has been shown that there are a number of other important reasons which lead to senility, and that people who have no bacteria in the intestines still grow old and die much before what is believed to be the normal span.
The famous French physiologist, Braun Secour, the Russian Voronoff and the German Jew Steinach have worked on this problem and have each found various methods for prolonging human life. They are all agreed on one point, that there is no reason why people should die at 70.
Prof. Gelman, one of the leading physiologists, is now at work on this problem. He is making experiments and observations on people of various ages, children, young people and old people, the oldest of them 123 and the youngest 75. The man of 123, a peasant named Mashuchin, died a few weeks back, and the oldest man in the clinic, Zurilnikoff, is 112.
Jacob de Velosino was the first Hebrew author born on American soil.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
