or less active exercises of the understanding, or by the defect or weakness of some of the other stimuli which kept up the motion of life. V.-MATRIMONY. In the course of my enquiries, I only met with one person beyond 80 years of age who had never been married. I met with several women who had borne from ten to twenty children, and suckled them all. I met with one woman, a native of Hertfordshire, in England, who is now (at the time Dr. R. wrote), in the 100th year of her age, who bore a child at 60, menstruated till 80, and frequently suckled two of her children (though born in succession to each other), at the same time. She had passed the greatest part of her life over a washing tub. VI. SEDENTARY OCCUPATIONS. I have not founds edentary employments to prevent long life, where they are not accompanied by intemperance in eating or drinking. This observation is not confined to literary men, nor to women only, in whom longevity, without much exercise of body, has been frequently observed. I met with one instance of a weaver, a second of a silversmith, and a third of a shoemaker, among the number of old people, whose histories have suggested these observations." Dr. Rush did not find that acute, nor that all He chronic diseases shortened life. Dr. Franklin* had two successive vomuæ in his lungs before he was 40 years of age. He (Dr. R.), met with one man beyond 80, who had survived a most violent attack of the yellow fever; a second who had had several of his bones fractured by falls and in frays, and many who had frequently been affected by intermittents. met with one man of 86, who had all his life been subject to syncope; another who had been for fifty years occasionally affected by a cough;† and two instances of men who had been affected for forty years, with obstinate head-achs. He met with only one person beyond 80, who had ever been afflicted by a disorder in the stomach: and in him it rose from an occasional rupture. Mr. John Strangeways Hutton, of Philadelphia, who died at the age of 100 years, had never puked in his life. This circumstance is the * Dr. Franklin, who died in his 84th year, was descended from long-lived parents. His father died at 89, and his mother at 87. His father had seventeen children, by two wives. The doctor informed Dr. Rush that once he sat down as one of eleven adult sons and daughters at his father's table. In an excursion he once made to a part of England, from which his lady migrated to America, he discovered in a grave-yard the tomb-stones of several persons of his name, who had lived to be very old. These persons he supposed to have been his an cestors. + This man's only remedy for his cough was the fine powder of dry Indian turnip and honey. Dr. Thiery says, he did not find the itch, or a slight degree of the leprosy to prevent longevity. Obs. de Phys. et de Med. faites en differents lieux en Espagne, vol. ii. p. 171. more remarkable as he passed several years at sea when a young man. * "I have not found," says Dr. Rush," the loss of teeth to affect the duration of human life so much as might be expected. Edward Dunker, who lived to be 103, lost his teeth thirty years before he died, from drawing the hot smoke of tobocco into his mouth through a short pipe." Neither did he observe baldness or grey hairs occurring in early or middle life, to prevent old age. In one of the histories furnished Dr. R. by Le Sayre, he found an account of a man of 80, whose hair began to assume a silver colour when he was only eleven years of age. We have an account as recent as the 23d of March, 1829, in the Morning Herald, of a woman of the name of Isabel Smith, who died in the course of this month, *The venerable old man, whose history first suggested this remark, was born in New York, in 1684. His grandfather lived to be 101, but was unable to walk for thirty years before he died, from an excessive quantity of fat. His mother died at 91. His constant drink was water, beer, and cider. He had a fixed dislike to spirits of all kinds. His appetite was good, and he ate plentifully during the last years of his life. He seldom drank any thing between his meals. He was intoxicated but twice in his life, and that was when a boy and at sea, where he remembered perfectly to have celebrated, by a feu de joie, the birth-day of queen Anne. He was formerly afflicted with the headach, and giddiness, but never had a fever, except from the small-pox, in the course of his life. His pulse was slow, but regular. He had been twice married. By the first wife he had eight, and by his second seventeen children, one of which lived to be 83 years of age. He was about five feet nine inches in height, of a slender make, and carried an erect head to the last year of his life. at the advanced age of 105 years. She had been twice married. Till the last summer she was able to walk about, and almost till the day of her death, retained possession of her mental faculties. She seems to have belonged to a long-lived family. A sister of hers died about nineteen years ago, aged about 100. She was a native of the parish of Cruden, but for upwards of sixty years, had her residence at Peterhead. Sir John Sinclair, in his Essays on Miscellaneous Subjects, has comprehended the objects of human life under three general heads : 1. Animal, or individual pleasure. 2. Social gratifications. 3. Mental enjoyments. These he has again subdivided. The first as regards food, clothing, shelter; the second, into family connexion and personal friendship, marriage, property, useful occupations, political institutions, &c. Next, in the same Essays, he points out the circumstances tending to promote longevity, under the following heads: 1. Climate. 2. Form of the individual. 3. Parentage. 4. Natural disposition. 5. Situation of life. 6. Professions. 7. Exercise, or labour. 8. Connubial connexions. 9. Sex. And, 10. Renewal of age. Having discussed the subject of longevity in general, he (Sir John), next lays down the following TABLES OF LONGEVITY. Which explains the shortness of human life, and points out how few there are, in proportion to the number born, who reach even the period of 60 years.* Of a hundred men who are born, there die, and according to Huffeland, Hence it would appear that there are only six out of a hundred, who stand a chance of living beyond 60 years. Of persons who have lived above 100 years, the industrious Haller has collected 1113 instances, and gives the following statement of the duration of their lives: * On the Art of Prolonging Life. Huffeland. |