“But I, on the contrary, who knew that the sober life I had led for many years past had so well united, harmonised, and dispersed my humours as not to leave it in their power to ferment to such a degree [as to induce the expected high fever], refused to be either bled or purged. I simply caused my leg and arm to be set, and suffered myself to be rubbed with some oils, which they said were proper on the occasion. Thus, without using any other kind of remedy, I recovered, as I thought I should, without feeling the least alteration in myself or any other bad effects from the accident, a thing which appeared no less than miraculous in the eyes of the physicians.”
It is, perhaps, hardly to be expected that “The Faculty” will endorse the opinions of Cornaro, that any person by attending strictly to his regimen “could never be sick again, as it removes every cause of illness; and so, for the future, would never want either physician or physic”:—
“Nay, by attending duly to what I have said he would become his own physician, and, indeed, the best he could have, since, in fact, no man can be a perfect physician to anyone but himself. The reason of which is that any man may, by repeated trials, acquire a perfect knowledge of his own constitution and the most hidden qualities of his body, and what food best agrees with his stomach. Now, it is so far from being an easy matter to know these things perfectly of another that we cannot, without much trouble, discover them in ourselves, since a great deal of time and repeated trials are required for that purpose.”
Cornaro’s second publication appeared three years later than his first, under the title of A Compendium of a Sober Life and the third, An Earnest Exhortation to a Sober and Regular Life,[103] in the ninety-third year of his age. In these little treatises he repeats and enforces in the most earnest manner his previous exhortations and warnings. He also takes the opportunity of exposing some of the plausible sophisms employed in defence of luxurious living:—
“Some allege that many, without leading such a life, have lived to a hundred, and that in constant health, although they ate a great deal and used indiscriminately every kind of viands and wine, and therefore flatter themselves that they shall be equally fortunate. But in this they are guilty of two mistakes. The first is, that it is not one in one hundred thousand that ever attains that happiness; the other mistake is, that such persons, in the end, most assuredly contract some illness which carries them off, nor can they ever be sure of ending their days otherwise, so that the safest way to obtain a long and healthy life is, at least after forty, to embrace abstinence. This is no difficult matter, since history informs us of very many who, in former times, lived with the greatest temperance, and I know that the present Age furnishes us with many such instances, reckoning myself one of the number. Now let us remember that we are human beings, and that man, being a rational animal, is himself master of his actions.”
Amongst others:—
“There are old gluttons (attempati) who say that it is necessary they should eat and drink a great deal to keep up their natural heat, which is constantly diminishing as they advance in years, and that it is therefore necessary for them to eat heartily and of such things as please their palates, and that were they to lead a frugal life it would be a short one. To this I answer that our kind mother, Nature, in order that old men may live to a still greater age, has contrived matters so that they should be able to subsist on little, as I do, for large quantities of food cannot be digested by old and feeble stomachs. Nor should such persons be afraid of shortening their lives by eating too little, since when they are indisposed they recover by eating the smallest quantities. Now, if by reducing themselves to a very small quantity of food they recover from the jaws of death, how can they doubt but that, with an increase of diet, still consistent, however, with sobriety, they will be able to support nature when in perfect health?
“Others say that it is better for a man to suffer every year three or four returns of his usual disorders, such as gout, sciatica, and the like than to be tormented the whole year by not indulging his appetite, and eating everything his palate likes best, since by a good regimen alone he is sure to get the better of such attacks. To this I answer that, our natural heat growing less and less as we advance in years, no regimen can retain virtue enough to conquer the malignity with which disorders of repletion are ever attended, so that he must die at last of these periodical disorders, because they abridge life as health prolongs it. Others pretend that it is much better to live ten years less than not indulge one’s appetite. My reply is that longevity ought to be highly valued by men of genius and intellect; as to others it is of no great matter if it is not duly prized by them, since it is they who brutalise the world (perchè questi fanno brutto il mondo), so that their death is rather of service to mankind.”
Cornaro frequently interrupts his discourse with apostrophes to the genius of Temperance, in which he seems to be at a loss for words to express his feeling of gratitude and thankfulness for the marvellous change effected in his constitution, by which he had been delivered from the terrible load of sufferings of his earlier life, and by which moreover he could fully appreciate, as he had never dreamed before, the beauties and charms of nature of the external world, as well as develope the mental faculties with which he had been endowed:—