Curiosities of Medical Experience Part 40

Of these two morbid elements, the first is susceptible of a thousand varieties both in nature and extent, and therefore produces as many modifications in the corrective power. Then does the archeus, threatened on different points in different manners, regulate his plans and operations both of defence and of attack, selecting his weapons according to the nature of his antagonists. In this mutual struggle our archeus wisely checks the impetuosity of his onset, husbands his forces, and merely detaches them from the main body according to the circ.u.mstances of the conflict; thus ever keeping a powerful reserve. It is this wisdom of conduct that ultimately restores tranquillity, and compels the rebellious molecules to submit to the laws of organization. For what const.i.tutes the cure of a disease, whether obtained by nature or by art? Nothing more than the dignified repose of the mighty archeus, when the fire of his wrath has consumed his foes. Diseases, therefore, are simply the execution of vast and complex projects that inspire the archeus, and which he carries into execution as the statuary embodies on the marble the conceptions of his genius. When the morbid idea is in conformity with his plans, a favourable result will ensue; if, on the contrary, the archeus labours under a misconception, if he is thrown by erroneous impressions into disordinate steps, then may this power, excited without a just motive, or a determinate and proper object, turn its arms against itself, and destroy the ties that united it to matter. It is then that art, whose aim it is to meet the foe with his own weapons, must have recourse to medicine for the purpose of rousing the torpor of the archeus, reanimate his energies if he droops, overthrow him if he becomes unruly, and finally compel him to yield, by a salutary terror; forcibly bringing him back to that judicious equilibrium in action, when all the functions contribute in harmony and concert to the general welfare of the system.

Such were the truly poetical ideas of Van Helmont, who might have written an epic on the government, revolutions, and battles, in the archean state, similar to the Holy War of our ingenious Bunyan; for, like the cobler poet, our theorist divided and subdivided his legions and their officers.

The archeus is merely the sovereign commander, whose head-quarters and throne were in the stomach; all the other viscera have distinct commandants, receiving their orders from their chief, who employed the nerves of his _aides-de-camp_. Nor was it an easy matter to keep all these captains in a proper state of discipline. Their irregularities occasioned constant tumults; for the court of the archeus, like all other courts, was most depraved and capricious in its practices, and intriguing in all its machinations, and the archeus had great trouble in keeping his subordinates in a proper state.

The most rebellious of his generals was the one who commanded the uterine district. There it was in vain that the articles of war were constantly read,--that solitary confinement and prison-diet were resorted to. Its constant mutinies not only demanded the utmost vigilance, but it was no easy matter to prevent its dangerous influence from contaminating the other branches of the service; and treasonable correspondences were not unfrequently discovered with the staff of the brain. This rebellious province, indeed, excited incessant apprehension, constantly agitated the entire commonwealth, and, on the plea of national welfare and liberty, it hoisted at times a standard of defiance, and precipitated the country in all the miseries of civil war; the more to be dreaded, as it always put forth the most specious pleas, destroying with words of peace.

This whimsical doctrine is not unlike the Platonic theories, and resembles the _naturism_ or [Greek: enormon] of Hippocrates, and the autocracy of the soul, of Stahl. Van Helmont not only established his archei in animals, but in plants, and even in our food. The archeus of man he sometimes called _ens seminale_, _ens spirituale_, _impetum faciens_, _aura vitalis_. Well aware that the most powerful despot cannot reign without rival powers, Van Helmont admitted certain _imperia in imperio_: for instance, there was a troublesome minister in his own cabinet, whom the archeus frequently could not control,--one _pylorus rector_, or master of the ceremonies; then he had to apprehend the power of a secret faculty possessed by the stomach and spleen, which he called a _duumvirate_,--_jus duumvirat'_. The sensitive and immortal soul was another check on his sway; while the spirit of life residing in the blood was not easily managed. All these vexations occasioned frequent attacks of illness in the monarch, and Van Helmont has described these several affections; for, although he possessed the power of conceiving and executing plans of disease, like many physicians, he did not know how to cure himself.

When we consider that systems similar to this absurd doctrine, if not more extravagant, have ruled the medical schools for centuries with a despotic sway, can we marvel that medicine should have incurred the invectives of scepticism, or the scurrility of wits? In the very ratio of their absurdity have these flitting systems been maintained with scholastic fury; their proselytes would have vied in excesses with monastic persecutors, had they been able to a.s.sume a religious mask. It is painful to observe that unbelief and impious ridicule in theologic matters may be referred to the same causes as medical scepticism,--the vain and presumptuous endeavour of man to explain that which the CREATOR has most probably willed to remain inexplicable. Instead of wisely referring all that is mysterious to the Almighty Power that knows no limit, man has sought to explain and comment upon human principles, nay upon human motives; and when they could no longer attribute evil to G.o.d, they crossed the _pons asinorum_ to call in the Devil. In like manner, when they proudly fancied that they had regulated all the functions of the animal economy in that harmonious manner that they were modest enough to call admirable and wondrous, they endeavoured to account for a derangement of this equilibrious condition, either by the introduction of some evil spirit, or the unmanageable rebellion of some organ, some principle, some agency, and for this purpose they gave individuality and specific vitality to those agents, each of the _dramatis personae_ having a particular part to perform in bringing on a tragic catastrophe or a happy _denouement_ of the drama of life.

Let not the learned doctors of modern schools exclaim, that these were the errors of former days and of dark ages. They themselves are grovelling and groping in the dark whenever they pretend to fly from the trammels of empiricism, and, like our forefathers, account for what is unaccountable.

But, above all, let them be meek and modest (if they can) in pa.s.sing judgment upon others, and inscribe upon the doors of their splendid libraries the saying of the olden sage, "All that we know is our own ignorance."

MONSTERS.

Philosophers have puzzled their brains to no purpose in endeavouring to account for the unnatural formation of animals. The ancients, amongst whom we may name Democritus and Epicurus, attributing all organization to an atomic aggregation, fancied that matter was endowed with an elective faculty and certain volition in attaining this organism; and considered monstruosities as mere experiments on the part of these atoms to produce some other species or races. This chimera was of a par with the archeus and his satellites of the preceding article. There is no doubt, however, that in the myriads of organized creatures various circ.u.mstances may tend to affect most materially the regularity of these developments, in the same manner as the properties and peculiar qualities of their organs may depend in a great measure upon similar influences. Conservation and reproduction are in the ratio of this perfection and imperfection. It is true, generally speaking, that the healthy and the best organized are less liable to engender an ill-conformed offspring; yet parents of this description have been known to produce monsters. Still the _fortes creantur fortibus_ of Horace has become a proverbial expression; and some fanciful wanderers in the mazes of imagination framed rules for their _megalanthropogenesy_, or the art of creating ill.u.s.trious men and distinguished women by uniting the learned and the witty.

Generation is a wondrous mystery. Many casual circ.u.mstances may check the mechanism of its action, (if I may be allowed the expression,) and affect its results. Any sudden physical or moral impression acting violently might produce this result; although, despite the theories and experiments of philosophers, it has not been proved that conception depends in the slightest degree upon the pa.s.sions, being an act of nature totally independent of the control of mental emotions or bodily sufferings. This fact is clearly proved in cases of brutal violence.

The ideas entertained by several naturalists, that organized beings were cast in a certain mould, were not altogether visionary, or unfounded in observation. The great resemblance between children, and their hereditary mal-conformation and defectuosities in whole families, would seem to a certain degree to warrant this conclusion; but it is more probable that imagination may have some influence in this irregularity, although at the time we may be unconscious of the relative action of moral agency on physical functions. The supporters of the existence of this plastic mould in which organized matter is cast, would then maintain that the mind having once influenced the conformation of the matrix, it would ever after preserve this deviation from nature's general laws.

It is evident that different species of animals and vegetables have disappeared on the face of the earth, some within the memory of man. We neither know how these species have ceased to exist, nor whether all that possibly can be created has. .h.i.therto been brought into being; neither can we form any idea regarding the perpetuity of the races that surround us.

Perpetuity and eternity (as far as regards this world) are conventional terms: races were supposed to be perpetuated by the successive evolutions of germs, as I have observed in a former article. To a certain extent this doctrine is correct, and is rendered evident in the evolutions of plants arising from their seed. Preternatural conditions are merely irregularities in this germination. The doctrine, that at each creation a true generation and gradual formation of a new conception from the formless genital matter takes place, does not appear to me reconcileable with sound physiology, nor supported by observation; for, were this the case, it is more than probable that preternatural formations would be more frequent. It was upon this doctrine that the learned Blumenbach founded his _nisus formativus_, an expression that he thus explains: "The word _nisus_ I have adopted chiefly to express an energy truly vital, and therefore to distinguish it as clearly as possible from powers merely mechanical, by which some physiologists formerly endeavoured to explain generation. The point upon which the whole of this doctrine respecting the _nisus formativus_ turns, and which is alone sufficient to distinguish it from the _vis plastica_ of the ancients, or the _vis essentialis_ of Wolff, and similar hypotheses, is _the union and intimate co-exertion of two distinct principles in the evolution of the nature of organized bodies_,--_of the_ PHYSICO-MECHANICAL _with the purely_ TELEOLOGICAL;--principles which have hitherto been adopted, but separately, by physiologists in framing theories of generation."

The ingenuity of this hypothesis must be admitted, but it does not militate against the pre-existence of germs. Germs are visible in the ovum before fecundation; in these germs the very primordia of future organization can be distinguished. It is by no means necessary to allow these germs an exciting power, or a formative power, as has been objected: they are more or less profuse, and under the influence, as I have already said, of accidental circ.u.mstances. It has been maintained that monsters are more common in domesticated animals than in wild ones. This is by no means evident, since we have little opportunity of ascertaining the case in forests and in wildernesses; but, admitting the fact, it only tends to corroborate my opinion regarding the influence of accidental causes in physical development, since domestication must expose animals to many emotions unknown in their natural condition. It has been said that monsters are especially observed among sows. There perhaps is no animal under the subjection of man, excepting, perhaps, the unfortunate donkey, more exposed to physical injuries during gestation; and as the Portuguese maintain that a _cajado_ (a stick) springs from the earth whenever an a.s.s is born, so our b.u.mkins and malicious urchins fancy that every one owes a kick to a gravid sow. Howbeit, I doubt much whether the swinish mult.i.tude are more subject to bear monstruosities than other animals; and preternatural conformations are, I believe, as frequent in lambs, and calves, and chickens; and double-headed and double-legged specimens of these animals are more frequently exhibited than monstrous pigs.

Monstruosities are of two kinds, and exhibit either an excess of parts or a defect. Thus, some children are born with more limbs than usual, whilst others are deprived of their natural proportions. It is not unlikely that in the former case twins were being developed; whereas, in the other, the proper nourishment of the parts that are either wanting or stunted in their growth had somehow or other been impeded in its a.s.similation. This opinion seems to be warranted by the facts observed in the artificial incubation of eggs, the different parts of the chick being more or less perfect where the heat had been more or less steadily applied; the produce of those eggs that had enjoyed more warmth being invariably the stronger.

The same remark applies to plants. Eggs and seeds are in most respects ruled by similar laws in the phenomena of their germination: the arms and legs grow from the animal foetus, as the branches originate from the trunk of the tree. These ramifications are frequently as symmetrical as human limbs. When there are preternatural excesses in formation, it is probable that twins were intended: thus we see foetuses with double heads, or with two bodies. The same irregularity is observed in double and triple cherries, and other fruits. It is probable that this union took place when these bodies were in a soft state, and the vessels inosculated in their intricate ramifications with greater facility, until further development had consolidated the junction.

If a proof were wanting that monstruosities do not arise in the original organization of the embryo, but from subsequent accidents during gestation, it might be sought in those preternatural appearances that arise from frights or longings, and const.i.tute what are called _naevi materni_. Thus are infants born bearing the marks of some fruit the mother had desired, or some animal that had terrified her. This phenomenon plainly shows that there does exist a wonderful sympathy between external objects and the uterine system; yet this sympathy is not as surprising as that which is subsequently observed between these marks and the fruit they represent. It is a well-authenticated fact that they will a.s.sume a tinge of maturity when the fruit is ripening, and become gradually more pale as it is going out of season. The same observation has been made in regard to animal marks; for instance, these marks have displayed a deeper colour when the mouse or the rat that had occasioned them was mentioned. I know a lady who, during her pregnancy, was struck with the unpleasant view of leeches applied to a relative's foot. Her child was born with the mark of a leech coiled up in the act of suction on the identical spot. Mr. Bennett has published a remarkable instance of this uterine sympathy. A woman gave birth to a child with a large cl.u.s.ter of globular tumours growing from the tongue, and preventing the closure of the mouth, in colour, shape, and size exactly resembling our common grapes, and with a red excrescence from the chest, as exactly resembling in figure and appearance a turkey's wattles. On being questioned before the child was shown her, she answered that, while pregnant, she had seen some grapes, longed intensely for them, and constantly thought of them; and that she was also once attacked and much alarmed by a turkey-c.o.c.k.

Various writers have positively denied these facts. Gerard tells us that he had known three pregnant women whose minds had been constantly occupied with the unpleasant recollections of a cripple, of a dancing-dog fantastically dressed, and a basket of beautiful peaches; yet their offspring bore no marks of these objects. This is no argument. No rational person could imagine for a single moment that every impression thus received is to be transmitted. Buffon, who also doubts this influence, thus expresses himself: "We must not expect that we shall be able to convince women that the marks their children may bear have no a.n.a.logy with ungratified longings. I have frequently asked them, before the birth of their infants, what had been their wishes, and consequently what would be the marks that they might expect? By this question I frequently gave unintentional offence."

Now, with all due respect to this celebrated naturalist, this argument is by no means conclusive. We perfectly well know that pregnant women are frequently alarmed without such consequences, and the most fantastic phantasies may cross their idle brains, without any such result. It has been observed on this subject, "that when a circ.u.mstance may proceed from many causes, we do not universally reject any one because it is frequently alleged without reason." We have too many well-authenticated cases before us to doubt this strange effect of maternal impressions, so clearly observed and recorded in Holy Writ in the following pa.s.sage of Genesis: "And Jacob took him rods of Green poplar, and of the hazel and chestnut tree, and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods. And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering-troughs, when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink. And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ring-straked, speckled, and spotted."

The sympathy that evidently exists between bodies separated from each other, but previously connected, has given rise to many absurd stories. It is told of Taliocotius, that having made a nose for a patient, cut out of a pig, the poor man's snout fell off the moment the hog was slaughtered. A similar belief prevails among horticulturists, who a.s.sert that the graft perishes when the parent tree decays. A very singular phenomenon is observed in wine countries, where the wine in wood enters into a state of slight effervescence, and even efflorescence, when the vines begin to throw out their blossoms.

It therefore appears to me more than probable that monstruosities are by no means original mal-conformations, but arise, during gestation, from physical or moral influences that affect the mother, however unconscious she may be of their action. We have frequent instances of violence occasioning preternatural developements. Mr. Giron Buzareingues mentions that a violent blow was given to a gravid b.i.t.c.h, who produced eight pups, all of which excepting one, had the hind-legs wanting, malconformed, or weak.

A further disquisition would lead me beyond the limits of a sketch. I shall therefore relate some curious cases of monstruosities, that would seem to set at nought our ideas regarding the _indispensability_ of certain organs to the functions of life.

Various instances are recorded of the union of two or more foetuses. We have lately seen the Siamese twins, and such a preternatural formation is by no means uncommon. In the Journal de Verdun, 1709, a case is related of two twin female children who were united at the loins, with only one intestinal ca.n.a.l. They were seven years old, could walk about, embrace each other in the fondest manner, and both were proficient in several languages. Buffon gives the history of two Hungarian girls, who were also joined together in the lumbar region. Helena, who was the first-born, became tall and straight; Judith, her sister, was of a diminutive size, and slightly arched. At six years of age she was attacked with hemiplegia, and never recovered perfect health. Helena was sprightly and intelligent.

With the exception of the smallpox and measles, under which they laboured at the same time, their ailments were always distinct. They lived until the age of twenty-two, when Judith was attacked with a fever, that shortly terminated her existence. The horror expressed by Helena in beholding her dead companion, with whom she had been identified in sisterly love for so many years, cannot be described; but her agonies were of short duration, for in three minutes she also had ceased to live. On their _post mortem_ examination each was found to have possessed distinct viscera. The aorta and vena cava were united above the origin of the iliac arteries, so that no severing operation could have been performed without destroying them both.

Duverney relates the case of twins united at the lower part of the abdomen. They only lived six days; the strongest of the two died first, and was followed by his companion three hours after. Haller records upwards of thirty cases of a similar nature; and various skeletons of this description are to be seen in our museums. Munster saw two girls united by the forehead. They had then attained their tenth year, when one of them died. It therefore became indispensable to separate them, but the unfortunate creature did not survive the operation. Daubenton describes two children united at the back of the head.

Such miserable junctions naturally suggested the idea of effecting a separation by surgical means; but I believe this operation was only once performed with a successful result. Two little girls were united from the xiphoid cartilage to the umbilicus. The uniting substance was an inch in thickness, six lines in breadth, and five inches in circ.u.mference. In the centre of the junction was the umbilical ring common to both. The umbilical vessels were separated and tied; the ligature fell at the expiration of nine days; and then Zwingler, the operator, proceeded to divide the remaining bonds.

Various monsters have been seen with four arms and three legs, or four legs and two or three arms. The history of the double-headed infant of Oxford is curious. This creature had two heads diametrically opposite, four arms, one body and two lower extremities. These heads were doubly baptized; one by the name of Martha, and the other Mary. The features were different; Mary's was smiling, Martha's dejected. The latter died two days after her birth, and Mary expired a quarter of an hour after.

A curious monster of a similar description is recorded to have lived at the court of James IV. of Scotland. It had been taught several languages, and music. One head was intelligent, the other remarkably stupid. This creature lived twenty-eight years, when one of the individuals died. The other survived several days, but gradually drooped as the body of his late companion was decomposing. In olden writers we have many curious cases.

How far they may be ent.i.tled to credit I cannot say; although we have no reason to deny the fact, when we daily witness the most singular malconformations. Liceti relates the case of a child with two legs, but seven heads and seven arms. Bartholinus mentions one with three heads, each of which uttered the most horrible cries, and then expired.

While these unfortunates were visited with several heads, instances have been known of heads that had attained a most enormous volume. In Tunis, there was a Moor of thirty years of age, whose head was so large, that crowds followed him in the streets; and his mouth was of such a capacity, that he could devour a large melon as easily as an apple. This man was an idiot. At Lucca, Benvenuti saw a lad, otherwise well-proportioned, whose head at the age of seven began to increase so rapidly, that when he was twenty-seven it measured thirty-seven inches eight lines in circ.u.mference, and his face was fifteen inches long.

Singular monstruosities have been seen, where heads and bodies seemed actually to be growing from or hanging to individuals. Winslow knew an Italian child, of eight years of age, who carried a little head under the third left rib, and peeping out as if the body of the one had been concealed in that of the other. Both heads had been christened; the one James, the other Matthew. When the ear of little Matthew was pinched, his host James forthwith began to roar. The Bengal child, whose case is related by Valentin and Horne, is equally singular. Here one head was placed above the other, the superior one nearly as well conformed as the lower; both adhered intimately. The upper face a.s.sumed somewhat of an oblique direction. Each head had its distinct brain: sometimes one head was fast asleep while his neighbour was wide awake, and one head would cry most piteously if you pulled the hair of the other; but, what was still more singular, when the one was fed, its companion expressed its gratification, and water flowed from its mouth. This monster lived four years, and probably would have lived much longer, but for the bite of a venomous reptile.

In a former article I alluded to encephalous and anencephalous cases, where there were either no heads or heads without brains. Of the first variety Beclard relates the following: A woman at Angers was delivered of twins, one of which not only was without a head, but only showed the inferior part of the body; without arms, a small stump-like excrescence growing from the upper part of the chest; the feet were turned inwards, and without toes. The creature was of the male s.e.x. The body presented one cavity without any diaphragm; nor could any trace of liver, spleen, oesophagus, or stomach be detected: the intestinal tube commenced at the upper part of the body, but was impervious; the pancreas and kidneys were as usual; the umbilical vein arose from the cava, and the umbilical arteries from the hypogastric. There were ten ribs on each side, and the spinal marrow threw out its regular nerves.

Brunel has recorded the case of a male infant born without brains. The frontal bone was thrown back, and flattened on the sphenoid in such a manner that the eyes appeared above his head. The parietal and the squamous portion of the temporal were wanting, although the organ of hearing was well conformed. Not a vestige of brain could be discovered; yet the carotid and vertebral arteries crossed the basis of the cranium.

The spinal marrow arose from the fourth cervical vertebra. The organs of sight were perfect. Saviard describes an infant in which all the bones of the cranium were wanting, and, instead of a brain, the skin merely covered a cyst, containing a red pulpy substance resembling brain, whence arose several nerves.

It is, no doubt, to these malconformations that we are to attribute the various stories of children with heads of monkeys, goats, pigs, &c., or of that child whose face represented the devil, and who was described as "Cacodaemonis picturae quam humanae figurae similius," &c. The idle tales of Cyclopes are also to be sought in such accidental preternatural appearances, and several instances are recorded of children born with a single eye in the forehead. It would be useless to dwell longer on this painful subject. Those who wish for more information may gratify their curiosity by consulting the works of Haller, Soemmering, and other writers, who have treated this matter _ex professo_.

In conclusion, it appears to me that monstruosities are purely accidental, subject to no laws of nature, but deviations from them. We leave to theologasters the question of their being visitations of divine wrath. The only theories that can admit of discussion are the following: 1st, The imagination of the mother; 2nd, Accidental causes; and 3rd, An original monstrous germ. Maternal marks arising from longings and terror, as I have already observed, seemed to warrant the first conclusion; yet it is not tenable. What has imagination to do with the vegetable kingdom, which also presents monstrous conformations? Are we to attribute the same power of imagination to the brute creation? and, although we may fully admit the sympathy that exists between the uterine system and external objects, yet we cannot refer headless and double and triple embryos to this influence.

The last hypothesis is also fraught with objections. We have every reason to believe that all germs or seed are perfect in themselves. Were there monstrous germs, there would ensue monstrous races. That germs may be accidentally vitiated and impaired there can be no doubt; but such an advent.i.tious occurrence does not const.i.tute an original monstruosity.

Duverney and Winslow maintained that, in the case of a double monster, the monstruosity arose in the primitive germ. Lemery and other physiologists, on the contrary, insisted that double foetuses arise, as I have already stated, from a junction or fusion between two separate bodies, or, in short, the union of twins or triple conceptions, &c. Anatomical investigations confirmed this opinion, since in double-headed foetuses two distinct sets of organs are generally found.

This subject has occupied the most ingenious philosophers for centuries; and the result of their experiments and debates seems to warrant the probability of these melancholy deviations from nature, foolishly denominated _lusi naturae_, being purely accidental. The experiments of Jacobi seem to confirm this opinion, since he was able to produce preternatural fecundation in the eggs of fishes.

This investigation may appear idle; yet, in a physiological point of view, it is fraught with interest as regarding the generation of animals and plants. Its study affords a lively ill.u.s.tration of those laws of attraction and repulsion that regulate the universe, and which seem to admit that every particle of matter should be endowed with a specific vitality, a specific individuality. This attraction is daily seen in the fecundation of the sp.a.w.n of fish. Myriads of these eggs are acc.u.mulated in ponds and rivers; yet in this ma.s.s the fecundating principle solely selects and impregnates those that naturally claim its vivifying powers.

Wonderful harmony, that man alone endeavours to destroy!--harmony so perfect, that Aristoxenus and Alcmaeon maintained that it was an emanation of the diapason of celestial music between the planets, our globe, and our five senses, forming a diatonic series of seven tones; while Hippocrates justly denominated these organic laws the CONFLUXUS UNUS, CONSPIRATIO UNICA, CONSENTIENTIA OMNIA.

LONGEVITY.

The greater the complexity of a piece of machinery, and the more labour it is called upon to perform, the more rapid will be its wear and tear. This applies to human life as well as to mechanism. The derangement of its component parts--its springs and wheels, will also be in the ratio of their complication. Thus do we find that the brute creation are less subject to those affections that abridge their days than mankind. Their life is natural, except when under the sway of domestication: ours is artificial; and high civilization tends to render it still more unnatural than it would most probably have been in a simple and patriarchal existence. Endowed with more acuteness of sensibility than animals, we are rendered more susceptible of the extremes of pleasure and of pain; and our voluptuous enjoyments are perhaps more prejudicial than our sufferings.

Had not the Creator wisely granted us the faculty of reasoning, we should have been the most wretched of all organized beings.

The tenure of life depends upon the sum of vitality originally deposited, and the extent of our drafts upon this capital, which we too frequently exhaust by untimely expenses. Experience has proved that under ordinary circ.u.mstances, man can live six or seven times longer than the years required to attain p.u.b.erty. This epoch is placed at our fourteenth year.

This calculation would therefore yield from 84 to 98 years of age. Our own imprudences, and the disorders resulting from them, are more hostile in abridging this period than nature, all-wise and all-bountiful. Indeed, when we reflect on all the excesses to which we expose our frail and complicated being, as if we were resolved to try by every possible experiment how far it possesses the power of resisting destructive agents, we can only marvel in beholding so many instances of longevity. In this wasteful existence how many valuable hours do we not lose? how many real enjoyments have we not deprived ourselves of? When compared to the immensity of time, life is but an idle span. Let us deduct even from old age the years of infancy, the years of caducity, and the years of sleep,--alas! what remaineth of our many and our energetic days?

Maupertuis calculated that in an ordinary life man could scarcely enjoy more than three years of happiness, mixed up with sixty or eighty years of misery or insipidity; and yet how miserable are we at the thought of quitting this short-leased tenement, though every wretchedness renders our abode a constant scene of uneasiness. It has been computed that out of about nine hundred millions of human beings that are scattered over the globe, it is more than probable that we could not find nine thousand individuals blessed with happiness, even taking happiness in its most limited sense--content. Were it not for the terrors of futurity, it is more than probable that our existence would lose much of its value.

Socrates termed philosophy "the preparation for death;" the same may be said of our existence.

Happily for man, life is a dream, all is illusion; sufferings alone are positive; Pandora's box is its best ill.u.s.tration. Could we have slept away our existence in constant visions, we should have lived as long as in a waking state. When we contemplate the flocks of human beings scattered like cattle on the face of the universe, with scarcely more intellect than the beasts of the same field, we might ask for what were they created?

doomed to all the horrors of sickness or of war, victims of their own follies or the ambitious projects of others! As far as regards this life, it is worse than idle to seek a solution of the problem. In these inquiries we too often seek to guess that which we can never know, and to know that which we can never guess! We all complain and murmur like the woodman in the fable, yet are loath to accept the relief we loudly call for.

The longevity of the first races, and the patriarchs, are records foreign to the investigations of natural history; we must seek for more recent examples. Haller had collected the cases of many centenaries, amounting to sixty-two who had reached from 100 to 120; twenty-nine from 120 to 130; and fifteen from 130 to 140. Few instances are authenticated beyond this period: yet we find one Eccleston, who lived 143 years; John Effingham, who attained his 144th; a Norwegian, who counted a century and a half; and our Thomas Parr would most probably have pa.s.sed his 152nd year but for an excess. Henry Jenkins lived to 169; and we have on record the case of a Negress, aged 175. The Hungarian family of John Rovin were remarkable for their longevity: the father lived to 172, the wife to 164; they had been married 142 years, and their youngest child was 115; and such was the influence of habit and filial affection, that this _child_ was treated with all the severity of paternal rigidity, and did not dare to act without his _papa's_ and _mamma's_ permission.

By the calculations of Sussmilch, out of one thousand individuals, only one attained 97; and not more than one lived to the age of 100, out of one hundred and fourteen thousand. In the census of Italy, taken under Vespasian, there were found fifty-four of 100, fifty-seven of 110, two of 125, four of 130, and three of 140. In China, under Kien Long, in 1784, there were only four individuals who had attained their 100th year.

According to Larrey, there were at Cairo thirty-five persons who had exceeded their century. In Russia, in 1814, out of eight hundred and ninety-one thousand six hundred and fifty deaths, were three thousand five hundred and thirty-one from 100 to 132. In a register of deaths in Paris, taken in 1817, there were found in twenty-one thousand three hundred and ninety-two, nine from 95 to 100, and the general proportion of centenaries in that city is one to three thousand.