"He divides his day, the morning to exact science, the middle of the day to philosophy, and the evening to music and poetry. 'But above all, no discussion at the table. One should only eat with a calm spirit. Let the dining-room remain the dining-room, and never be turned into a room for argument. Discussion while eating is a cushion of needles in the stomach.'"
Dr. Felix L. Oswald has made the following brilliant conclusions in the "Curiosities of Longevity:"—
"Among the centenarians of all nations and all times, a significant plurality were either rustics, or city dwellers addicted to outdoor pursuits. Centenarians are remarkably frequent among the bailiff-ridden boors of Southern Russia, and the five oldest persons of modern times were care-worn if not abjectly poor villagers: Peter Czartan, who died in a hamlet near Belgrade, 1724, in his hundred and eighty-fifth year; the Russian beggar Kamartzik, a native of Polotzk, who reached an age of one hundred and sixty-three years, and died in consequence of an accident; the fisherman Jenkins, who, in spite of life-long penury, lived at least a century and a half (the estimate of his neighbors varying from one hundred and fifty-eight to one hundred and sixty-nine years); the negress Truxo, who died in slavery on the plantation of a Tucuman physician, in her hundred and seventy-fifth year; and the day-laborer, Thomas Parr, who attained the pretty-well-authenticated age of one hundred and fifty-two years, and who died a few weeks after his removal from country air and indigence to comfort and city quarters. If dietetic restrictions tend to prolong human life, the rule would seem to be chiefly confirmed by its exceptions. The children of Israel are apt to ascribe their certainly remarkable longevity to the Mosaic interdict of hogs' flesh....
"John H. Brown, M. D., the Berwick Æsculapius, enumerates a long list of patients who had postponed their funeral by following his plan of systematic hygiene—the plan, namely, of 'toning down' plethora by bleeding and cathartics, and of 'toning up' debility by means of beef and brandy. But sixteen hundred years ago the philosopher Lucian called attention to the exceptional longevity of the Pythagorean ascetics, whose religious by-laws enjoined total abstinence from wine and all sorts of animal food. The naturalist Brehm describes the robust physique of a Soudan chieftain who, at the reputed age of one hundred and six years, could hurl a stone with force sufficient to kill a jackal at a distance of fifty yards, and thought nothing of starving for a week or two if his foragers happened to return empty-handed. But the same traveler mentions that his swarthy Nestor now and then compensated such fasts by barbecues lasting from ten to twenty-four hours, and including a mélange of marrow-fat and pepper-grass, besides dozens of hard-boiled crane's eggs, jerboa stew, and deep draughts of clarified butter. Long fasts certainly enhance the vigor of the digestive organs, but the net result of repeating such experiments seems rather difficult to reconcile with the experience of Luigi Cornaro, the Venetian reformer, who managed to outlive all his cousins and schoolmates, and ascribed his success to the mathematical regularity of his bill of fare, which, during the last sixty years of his self-denying existence, had been limited to twelve ounces of solid food and fourteen ounces of fluids—wine chiefly, a beverage which the Soudanese emir would have rejected with a snort of virtuous horror. Dr. Virchow, though by no means an advocate of total abstinence, admits that the longevity of the Semitic desert-dwellers can be explained only by their caution in the use of stimulants—a virtue which in their case would, indeed, appear to offset an unusual number of circumstantial disadvantages—thirst, fiery suns, and fiery passions being decidedly unpropitious to length of life.
"And here, at last, we may strike a bit of terra firma in the quicksands of speculative hygiene. 'Take a hundred different animals,' says the sanitarian Schrodt, and you will find them to prefer a hundred different sorts of solid food, but they all drink milk in infancy, and afterward water; and considering the infinite variety of comestibles a healthy human stomach contrives to digest, we might very well agree to deserve that privilege by limiting the variety of our beverages.' Instinct certainly abhors the first taste of alcoholic liquors, and statistics prove that in all climes and among all nations the disease-resisting power of the human organism is diminished by the habitual use of toxic stimulants. Mohammed, Buddha, and Zoroaster agree on that point, and the esoteric teachings of Pythagoras may have qualified his rather fanciful objections to grape-juice by the practical hope of longevity. A complete list of infallible prescriptions for the prolongation of human life would fill a voluminous book, and would include some decidedly curious specifics. 'To what do you ascribe your hale old age?' the Emperor Augustus asked a centenarian whom he found wrestling in the palæstra and bandying jokes with the young athletes. 'Intus mulso, foris oleo,' said the old fellow—'Oil for the skin and mead [water and honey] for the inner man.' Cardanus suggests that old age might be indefinitely postponed by a semi-fluid diet warmed (like mothers' milk) to the exact temperature of the human system and Voltaire accuses his rival Maupertuis of having hoped to attain a similar result by varnishing his hide with a sort of resinous paint (un poix résineux) that would prevent the vital strength from evaporating by exhalation. Robert Burton recommends 'oil of unaphar and dormouse fat;' Paracelsus, rectified spirits of alcohol; Horace, olives and marsh-mallows. Dr. Zimmerman, the medical adviser of Frederick the Great, sums up the 'Art of Longevity' in the following words: 'Temperate habits, outdoor exercise, and steady industry, sweetened by occasional festivals.'"
"The increasing longevity of man is attracting considerable attention from collectors of statistics, and some curious facts are being elicited. According to the last census, 10 per cent of the people who died between 1870 and 1880 had outlived the traditional three-score years and ten, whereas of the deaths between 1840 and 1850, only 7.47 per cent were of persons of that age. In 1850, 16.90 per cent of the deaths were of children under one year of age; in 1880, the proportion was 23.24, showing a smaller percentage of deaths among adults. The average length of life in England 300 years ago was only twenty years. In France the average length of life, under Louis XVIII., was twenty-eight years. Actuaries are figuring that within the past half-century the average length of life has greatly increased."
"A study of this subject is impeded by the tendency of almost everyone to generalize from individual examples within his own observation. This is almost sure to be misleading, because no one's acquaintance is so large that it embraces factors enough to base a theory on. People say that life is longer than it used to be, because Palmerston rode to hounds at 82, and Peter Cooper and the Emperor William were intellectually vigorous at over 91. They forget that Marino Faliero was over 80 when he concocted his plot, and that the blind Dodge Dandolo was 84 when he took Constantinople. Every age has produced a few long-lived men, and here and there a centenarian."
"The question of importance is not whether this age is yielding more centenarians than former ages, but whether, on the average, the age of man is longer than it was, and if so, how much longer? The grounds for an increased longevity—better doctors and more of them, better drainage, more wholesome food, wiser habits, and better facilities for securing change of air—justify the belief that life is lengthening, to what degree it is hard to say. M. Flourens, who had made a life study of the subject, said that every man ought to live to be a hundred, if he took care of himself."
"In a number of the Popular Science Monthly is an article by Clement Milton Hammond on the prolongation of human life that is interesting both in the way of being readable and as based on returns as to an unusually large number of persons above eighty years of age. The facts were obtained by sending out 5,000 blanks to be filled. They were sent through New England only and were intended to cover personal history and hereditary influence. Over 3,500 of the blanks were filled out and returned. They show that less than 5 per cent remained unmarried through life, the unmarried women being three times as numerous as the unmarried men. The average number of children was five. Five out of six of the old people had light complexions, blue or gray eyes, and abundant brown hair. The men were generally tall and ranged in weight from 100 to 160 pounds, with a few of 200 pounds, and the women of medium size, weighing from 100 to 120 pounds, with some exceptional cases up to 180 pounds. The men were generally bony and muscular, and the women the opposite. At the time of record the hair was generally thick, the teeth poor or entirely gone, the skin only slightly wrinkled. Generally their habits of eating and sleeping have been conspicuously regular. They have as a rule adhered to one occupation through life, and of the 1,000 men 461 were farmers. Few have used alcoholic drink stronger than cider. A large majority of the men used tobacco. The average age of the parents and grandparents of the persons reported on was about sixty-five. The average time of sleep was about eight hours."
Dr. Maurice advances some staunch ideas on old age:—