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 palestra 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 semifluid diet warmed (like mother’s 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 resineux) 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 marshmallows. 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.”(Text.)—Felix Oswald, Bedford’s Magazine.
(1881)
LONGING
The thing we long for, that we are
For one transcendent moment,
Before the present, poor and bare,
Can make its sneering comment.
*****
Longing is God’s fresh heavenward will
With our poor earthward striving;