Influence of Stimulants

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

(Page 14 of 26)

There have been men who have attributed their long lives to their excesses in stimulants. Thomas Wishart of Annandale, Dumfries, died in 1760 at one hundred and twenty-four. He had chewed tobacco one hundred and seventeen years, contracting the habit when a child; his father gave it to him to allay hunger while shepherding in the mountains. John de la Somet of Virginia died in 1766 aged one hundred and thirty. He was a great smoker, and according to Eaton the habit agreed with his constitution, and was not improbably the cause of his long health and longevity. William Riddell, who died at one hundred and sixteen carefully avoided water all his life and had a love for brandy.

Possession of Faculties. Eglebert Hoff was a lad driving a team in Norway when the news was brought that Charles I was beheaded. He died in Fishkill, N.Y., in 1764 at the age of one hundred and twenty-eight. He never used spectacles, read fluently, and his memory and senses were retained until his death, which was due to an accident. Nicolas Petours, curate of the parish of Baleene and afterward canon of the Cathedral of Constance, died at the age of one hundred and thirty-seven; he was always a healthy, vigorous man, and celebrated mass five days before his death. Mr. Evans of Spital Street, Spitalfields, London, died in 1780 aged one hundred and thirty-nine, having full possession of his mental faculties. Of interest to Americans is the case of David Kinnison, who, when one hundred and eleven, related to Lossing the historian the tale of the Boston Tea Party, of which he had been a member. He died in good mental condition at the age of one hundred and fifteen. Anthony Senish, a farmer of the village of Limoges, died in 1770 in his one hundred and eleventh year. He labored until two weeks before his death, had still his hair, and his sight had not failed him. His usual food was chestnuts and Turkish corn; he had never been bled or used any medicine. Not very long ago there was alive in Tacony, near Philadelphia, a shoemaker named R. Glen in his one hundred and fourteenth year. He had seen King William III, and all his faculties were perfectly retained; he enjoyed good health, walking weekly to Philadelphia to church. His third wife was but thirty years old.

Longevity in Ireland. Lord Bacon said that at one time there was not a village in all Ireland in which there was not a man living upward of eighty. In Dunsford, a small village, there were living at one time 80 persons above the age of four score. Colonel Thomas Winslow was supposed to have died in Ireland on August 26, 1766, aged one hundred and forty-six. There was a man by the name of Butler who died at Kilkenny in 1769 aged one hundred and thirty-three. He rode after the hounds while yet a centenarian. Mrs. Eckelston, a widow in Phillipstown, Kings County, Ireland, died in 1690 at one hundred and forty-three.

There are a number of instances in which there is extraordinary renovation of the senses or even of the body in old age, - a new period of life, as it were, is begun. A remarkable instance is an old magistrate known to Hufeland, who lived at Rechingen and who died in 1791 aged one hundred and twenty. In 1787, long after he had lost all his teeth, eight new ones appeared, and at the end of six months they again dropped out, but their place was supplied by other new ones, and Nature, unwearied, continued this process until his death. All these teeth he had acquired and lost without pain, the whole number amounting to 150. Alice, a slave born in Philadelphia, and living in 1802 at the age of one hundred and sixteen, remembered William Penn and Thomas Story. Her faculties were well preserved, but she partially lost her eyesight at ninety-six, which, strange to say, returned in part at one hundred and two. There was a woman by the name of Helen Gray who died in her one hundred and fifth year, and who but a few years before her death had acquired a new set of teeth.

In Wilson's "Healthy Skin" are mentioned several instances of very old persons in whom the natural color of the hair returned after they had been gray for years. One of them was John Weeks, whose hair became brown again at one hundred and fourteen. Sir John Sinclair a mentions a similar case in a Scotchman who lived to one hundred and ten. Susan Edmonds when in her ninety-fifth year recovered her black hair, but previously to her death at one hundred and five again became gray. There was a Dr. Slave who at the age of eighty had a renewal of rich brown hair, which he maintained until his death at one hundred. There was a man in Vienna, aged one hundred and five, who had black hair long after his hair had first become white This man is mentioned as a parallel to Dr. Slave. Similar examples are mentioned in Chapter VI.

It is a remarkable fact that many persons who have reached an old age have lived on the smallest diet and the most frugal fare. Many of the instances of longevity were in people of Scotch origin who subsisted all their lives on porridges. Saint Anthony is said to have maintained life to one hundred and five on twelve ounces of bread daily. In 1792 in the Duchy of Holstein there was an industrious laborer named Stender who died at one hundred and three, his food for the most part of his life having been oatmeal and buttermilk. Throughout his life he had been particularly free from thirst, drinking little water and no spirits.

Heredity. There are some very interesting instances of successive longevity. Lister speaks of a son and a father, from a village called Dent, who were witnesses before a jury at York in 1664. The son was above one hundred and the father above one hundred and forty. John Moore died in 1805 aged one hundred and seven. His father died at one hundred and five and his grandfather at one hundred and fifteen, making a total of three hundred and twenty-seven years for the three generations. Recently, Wynter mentions four sisters, - of one hundred, one hundred and three, one hundred and five, and one hundred and seven years respectively. On the register of Bremhill 1696, is the following remarkable entry: "Buried, September 29th, Edith Goldie, Grace Young, and Elizabeth Wiltshire, their united ages making three hundred." As late as 1886 in the district of Campinos there was a strong active man named Joseph Joachim de Prado, of good family, who was one hundred and seven years old. His mother died by accident at one hundred and twelve, and his maternal grandmother died at one hundred and twenty-two.

Longevity in Active Military Service. One of the most remarkable proofs that under fickle fortune, constant danger, and the most destructive influences the life of man may be long preserved is exemplified in the case of an old soldier named Mittelstedt, who died in Prussia in 1792, aged one hundred and twelve. He was born at Fissalm in June, 1681. He entered the army, served under three Kings, Frederick I, Frederick William I, and Frederick II, and did active service in the Seven Years' War, in which his horse was shot under him and he was taken prisoner by the Russians. In his sixty-eight years of army service he participated in 17 general engagements, braved numerous dangers, and was wounded many times. After his turbulent life he married, and at last in 1790, in his one hundred and tenth year, he took a third wife. Until shortly before his death he walked every month to the pension office, a distance of two miles from his house.