14. The disposition in the system to renew certain parts in extreme old age, has been mentioned by several authors. Many instances are to be met with in the records of medicine of the sight[71] and hearing having been restored, and even of the teeth having been renewed in old people a few years before death. These phenomena have led me to suspect that the antediluvian age was attained by the frequent renovation of different parts of the body, and that when they occur, they are an effort of the causes which support animal life, to produce antediluvian longevity, by acting upon the revived excitability of the system.
15. The fear of death appears to be much less in old age, than in early, or middle life. I met with many old people who spoke of their dissolution with composure, and with some who expressed earnest desires to lie down in the grave. This indifference to life, and desire for death (whether they arise from a satiety in worldly pursuits and pleasures, or from a desire of being relieved from pain) appear to be a wise law in the animal economy, and worthy of being classed with those laws which accommodate the body and mind of man to all the natural evils, to which, in the common order of things, they are necessarily exposed.
III. I come now briefly to enumerate the diseases of old age, and the remedies which are most proper to remove, or to mitigate them.
The diseases are chronic and acute. The CHRONIC are,
1. Weakness of the knees and ancles, a lessened ability to walk, and tremors in the head and limbs.
2. Pains in the bones, known among nosological writers by the name of rheumatalgia.
3. Involuntary flow of tears, and of mucus from the nose.
4. Difficulty of breathing, and a short cough, with copious expectoration. A weak, or hoarse voice generally attends this cough.
5. Costiveness.