of Thomas Parr 209 



ready to discuss any kind of eatable that was at hand ; 

 his ordinary diet consisting of sub-rancid cheese, and 

 milk in every form, coarse and hard bread, and small 

 drink, generally sour whey. On this sorry fare, but 

 living in his home, free from care, did this poor man 

 attain to such length of days. He even ate something 

 about midnight shortly before his death. 



The kidneys were bedded in fat, and in themselves 

 sufficiently healthy; on their anterior aspects, however, 

 they contained several small watery abscesses or serous 

 collections, one of which, the size of a hen's egg, con- 

 taining a yellow fluid in a proper cyst, had made a 

 rounded depression in the substance of the kidney. 

 To this some were disposed to ascribe the suppression 

 of urine under which the old man had laboured shortly 

 before his death ; whilst others, and with greater show 

 of likelihood, ascribed it to the great regurgitation of 

 serum upon the lungs. 



There was no appearance of stone either in the 

 kidneys or bladder. 



The mesentery was loaded with fat, and the colon, 

 with the omentum, which was likewise fat, w r as attached 

 to the liver, near the fundus of the gall-bladder ; in 

 like manner the colon was adherent from this point 

 posteriorly w r ith the peritoneum. 



The viscera were healthy ; they only looked some- 

 what white externally, as they would have done had 

 they been parboiled ; internally they were (like the 

 blood) of the colour of dark gore. 



-The spleen was very small, scarcely equalling one of 

 the kidneys in size. 



All the internal parts, in a word, appeared so healthy, 

 that had nothing happened to interfere with the old 

 man's habits of life, he might perhaps have escaped 

 paying the debt due to nature for some little time 

 longer. 



The cause of death seemed fairly referrible to a 

 sudden change in the non-naturals, the chief mischief 



