Longevity : Personal Habits

Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine
by George M. Gould, M.D., Walter L. Pyle, M.D.

(Page 12 of 26)

According to Hufeland and other authorities on longevity, sobriety, regular habits, labor in the open air, exercise short of fatigue, calmness of mind, moderate intellectual power, and a family life are among the chief aids to longevity. For this reason we find the extraordinary instances of longevity among those people who amidst bodily labor and in the open air lead a simple life, agreeable to nature. Such are farmers, gardeners, hunters, soldiers, and sailors. In these situations man may still maintain the age of one hundred and fifty or even one hundred and sixty.

Possibly the most celebrated case of longevity on record is that of Henry Jenkins. This remarkable old man was born in Yorkshire in 1501 and died in 1670, aged one hundred and sixty-nine. He remembered the battle of Flodden Field in 1513, at which time he was twelve years old. It was proved from the registers of the Chancery and other courts that he had appeared in evidence one hundred and forty years before his death and had had an oath administered to him. In the office of the King's Remembrancer is a record of a deposition in which he appears as a witness at one hundred and fifty-seven. When above one hundred he was able to swim a rapid stream.

Thomas Parr (or Parre), among Englishmen known as "old Parr," was a poor farmer's servant, born in 1483. He remained single until eighty. His first wife lived thirty-two years, and eight years after her death, at the age of one hundred and twenty, he married again. Until his one hundred and thirtieth year he performed his ordinary duties, and at this age was even accustomed to thresh. He was visited by Thomas, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, and was persuaded to visit the King in London. His intelligence and venerable demeanor impressed every one, and crowds thronged to see him and pay him homage. The journey to London, together with the excitement and change of mode of living, undoubtedly hastened his death, which occurred in less than a year. He was one hundred and fifty-two years and nine months old, and had lived under nine Kings of England. Harvey examined his body and at the necropsy his internal organs were found in a most perfect state. His cartilages were not even ossified, as is the case generally with the very aged. The slightest cause of death could not be discovered, and the general impression was that he died from being over-fed and too-well treated in London. His great-grandson was said to have died in this century in Cork at the age of one hundred and three. Parr is celebrated by a monument reared to his memory in Westminster Abbey.

The author of the Dutch dictionary entitled "Het algemen historish Vanderbok" says that there was a peasant in Hungary named Jean Korin who was one hundred and seventy-two and his wife was one hundred and sixty-four; they had lived together one hundred and forty-eight years, and had a son at the time of their death who was one hundred and sixteen.

Setrasch Czarten, or, as he is called by Baily, Petratsh Zartan, was also born in Hungary at a village four miles from Teneswaer in 1537. He lived for one hundred and eighty years in one village and died at the age of one hundred and eighty-seven, or, as another authority has it, one hundred and eighty-five. A few days before his death he had walked a mile to wait at the post-office for the arrival of travelers and to ask for succor, which, on account of his remarkable age, was rarely refused him. He had lost nearly all his teeth and his beard and hair were white. He was accustomed to eat a little cake the Hungarians call kalatschen, with which he drank milk. After each repast he took a glass of eau-de-vie. His son was living at ninety-seven and his descendants to the fifth generation embellished his old age. Shortly before his death Count Wallis had his portrait painted. Comparing his age with that of others, we find that he was five years older than the Patriarch Isaac, ten more than Abraham, thirty-seven more than Nahor, sixteen more than Henry Jenkins, and thirty-three more than "old Parr."

Sundry Instances of Great Age. In a churchyard near Cardiff, Glamorganshire, is the following inscription: "Here lieth the body of William Edwards, of Cacreg, who departed this life 24th February, Anno Domini 1668, anno aetatis suae one hundred and sixty-eight."

Jonas Warren of Balydole died in 1787 aged one hundred and sixty-seven. He was called the "father of the fishermen" in his vicinity, as he had followed the trade for ninety-five years.

The Journal de Madrid, 1775, contains the account of a South American negress living in Spanish possessions who was one hundred and seventy-four years of age. The description is written by a witness, who declares that she told of events which confirmed her age. This is possibly the oft-quoted case that was described in the London Chronicle, October 5, 1780, Louisa Truxo, who died in South America at the age of one hundred and seventy-five.

Huteland speaks of Joseph Surrington, who died near Bergen, Norway, at the age of one hundred and sixty. Marvelous to relate, he had one living son of one hundred and three and another of nine. There has been recently reported from Vera Cruz, Mexico, in the town of Teluca, where the registers are carefully and efficiently kept, the death of a man one hundred and ninety-two years old - almost a modern version of Methuselah. Buffon describes a man who lived to be one hundred and sixty-five. Martin mentions a man of one hundred and eighty. There was a Polish peasant who reached one hundred and fifty-seven and had constantly labored up to his one hundred and forty-fifth year, always clad lightly, even in cold weather. Voigt admits the extreme age of one hundred and sixty.

There was a woman living in Moscow in 1848 who was said to be one hundred and sixty-eight; she had been married five times and was one hundred and twenty-one at her last wedding. D'Azara records the age of one hundred and eighty, and Roequefort speaks of two cases at one hundred and fifty.

There are stories of an Englishman who lived in the sixteenth century to be two hundred and seven, and there is a parallel case cited.

Van Owen tabulates 331 cases of deaths between 110 and 120, 91 between 120 and 130, 37 between 130 and 140, 11 at 150, and 17 beyond this age. While not vouching for the authenticity in each case, he has always given the sources of information.

Quite celebrated in English history by Raleigh and Bacon was the venerable Countess Desmond, who appeared at Court in 1614, being one hundred and forty years old and in full possession of all her powers, mental and physical. There are several portraits of her at this advanced age still to be seen. Lord Bacon also mentions a man named Marcus Appenius, living in Rimini, who was registered by a Vespasian tax-collector as being one hundred and fifty.