office a four-ounce vial, containing a small quantity of fluid extract of ergot, and a quart fruit can containing 32 grams of spurred rye which had been well steeped. Circumstantial evidence went to show that this woman had, within the twelve hours next preceding her death, swallowed not less than 93 grams of the fluid extract, and the infusion of 32 grams of ergot. spasmodic contraction of the heart.

Her death was caused by

HUMAN LONGEVITY.

W. S. HAYMOND, M. D., INDIANAPOLIS, IND.

Having noticed from time to time, in the newspapers and periodical publications, accounts of persons who were reported to have lived more than a hundred years, some who reached the extreme age of one hundred and twenty or one hundred and thirty years, I was led to investigate the subject of human longevity, and ascertain whether such extravagant statements were entitled to credence, and whether the facts extant on this subject, and the deductions from physiology, would justify the conclusion that human life can be extended materially beyond a hundred years.

The subject of longevity is certainly one of great interest and even of scientific importance, and I have accordingly judged it to be a proper theme to be presented before the assembled representatives of the medical profession of Indiana. The time has come when this question should be divested of its fictions, and that facts and rigid investigation should support the loose and unmethodical means hitherto employed in determining the extreme limit of life. This loose and uncritical manner is well exemplified by Dr. Dunglison in his work on Human Health, in relation to the mode in which the London bills of mortality were kept. He says they were not drawn up by medical practitioners, "but by parish clerks on the report of two old women in every parish, called searchers,” whose reports he thought could not be depended upon "as registers of individual diseases," but "might be esteemed sufficiently accurate as registers of ages." As registers of ages, being based entirely

upon hearsay testimony, they are almost worthless in an inquiry whose object is to determine the question, how long can a man live? It is, indeed, very singular that a subject of so much importance should have so long been treated in a negligent and unscientific manner, and that false and fictitious opinions concerning the extreme limit of life should prevail and pass unchallenged even by the votaries of science. The greater portion of the statistics that have hitherto been collected and compiled are wholly unreliable, as they seem to have been mainly drawn from current reports and traditions, which have been assumed to be true without investigation. We have a clear manifestation of this in the mortality statistics of the seventh census of the United States, as elaborated by De Bow, which I shall show hereafter are worthless as data in an investigation of this nature.

But while the question of longevity has been a mooted one for many centuries, rendered so, perhaps, more from the extravagant views of theorists than from any intrinsic difficulty pertaining to it, yet we find that very correct notions were entertained in relation to it at an early period of the world's history. The Psalmist said that "The days of our age are three score and ten, and though men be so strong that they come to four score years, yet is their strength but labor and sorrow, so soon it passeth away and we are gone. This expression was undoubtedly made in accordance with the then prevailing knowledge as to the usual limits of human life, though it does not seem to exclude the possibility of exceptional examples attaining a greater age than eighty years. It shows clearly that the ordinary span of human life was then substantially what it is now. Then, again, as to the extreme limit of life attained in exceptional instances, we have the declaration of Jesus the son of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus, xviii: 9), that "The number of a man's days at the most are a hundred years." Now I think it can be shown that this limit to the extraordinary life of man is approximately correct, and is consonant with the deductions of physiology and with the latest and most recondite investigations on longevity.

There have been numerous well authenticated instances of centenarianism and a few examples, apparently well authenticated, of persons living two or three years more than a century, but nearly all the reputed cases reaching a greater age than this have been found to

rest upon defective evidence, and can not be accepted as proven. If it can be shown, by an accurate investigation of the examples of extreme longevity reported in any populous or long-settled civilized country, that the limit of life has not exceeded one hundred and three or four years, it may be taken as the approximate measure of the limit of life in all countries and among all races of mankind. This I shall attempt to show in regard to the reputed cases of extreme longevity in England, where a searching investigation has torn off the mask of fiction that has so long misled and deceived. In the preparation of this paper I have examined numerous authorities which I have placed under contribution, among which I would specially mention the valuable work of P. Flourens, of Paris, on "Human Longevity," and "Human Longevity: its Facts and Fictions," by W. J. Thoms, Deputy Librarian of the House of Lords, England.

Buffon asserted that "the man who does not die of accidental causes or disease reaches everywhere the age of 90 or 100 years, and that the varieties of race, climate, food, conveniences, has nothing to do with the duration of life," and that nothing can change the physical laws which regulate the number of our years. Flourens accepts these views as correct, and asserts that the duration of life depends more upon the intrinsic virtue of our organs than anything else.

Haller takes an extreme view of the question, and assumes that man may attain the age of two centuries. His chief reason for this extravagant opinion seems to be based upon two examples of extreme longevity, viz., Thomas Parr, whose reputed age was one hundred and fifty-two years and nine months, and Henry Jenkins, one hundred and sixty-nine years. But as both of these examples, as will be shown hereafter, were fictitious, it follows that the foundation for his belief has been entirely swept away. Haller collected a great number of examples of reported cases of extreme age, among which he tabulated more than one thousand individuals who attained the age of from one hundred to one hundred and ten years; sixty from one hundred and ten to one hundred and twenty; twenty-nine from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty; fifteen from one hundred and thirty to one hundred and forty; six from one hundred and forty to one hundred and fifty; and one

(Henry Jenkins), one hundred and sixty-nine. With such data, assumed to be true, but, unfortunately, taken without proof, he expressed the belief that the limit of extraordinary life in man might reach two centuries.

It was Buffon who first pointed out the physiological law that expresses the relation between the period of growth in man and animals, and the duration of life. He placed this ratio at six or seven. Thus, if the growth of a horse is completed in four years he should live to be about six times that old, or twenty-four years; a dog, whose growth is effected in two years, should live twelve years, and so on for other animals. To man he allowed fourteen years for growth, and accordingly the duration of his life would be ninety to one hundred years. But the ratio adopted by Buffon, though approximately correct, is too high. It is now quite well determined that this ratio is five, or very nearly. Now, allowing the period of growth in man to be twenty years, which may be taken as a close approximation, the extreme limit of his life would be about one hundred years. The difficulty has hitherto been in determining the period of growth. We have seen that Buffon fixed it in man at the early age of fourteen years, which is entirely too young, and which led him to the adoption of a ratio too high. The period of growth must be marked by some physiological change, otherwise it is an uncertain and fluctuating quantity, whose multiplication by a fixed ratio must give constantly varying results. The period of growth, as now ascertained, has its limit at the time when the bones and their epiphyses become united, and this occurs in man at or about the twentieth year. Up to the time of this union man and animals continue to grow, and cease to grow when it is effected. Hence it may be assumed that the period of growth, as determined by the union of the bones and their epiphyses, is a reliable index to the duration of life, or its maximum. There is also a somewhat definite relationship between the period of utero gestation and the duration of growth, but my limited time will not permit me to pursue this question.

Much speculation has existed from early times in regard to the age of the elephant. Aristotle asserted its age was 200 years; Buffon at least 200; others 130, 140, or 150 years, and a few have held the opinion it might reach as high as 400 or 500 years.

But