624 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the head of weakness, evinced by inability to put forth or maintain 

 much effort of any kind, bodily or mental. Fatigue soon comes on; 

 the muscular weakness proceeding to partial or complete loss of the 

 use of the lower limbs, and to tremor of the upper limbs. The diffi- 

 culty of penning a straight line resulting from this latter, being the 

 cause of the smallness of the handwriting, often noticeable of old 

 people. The weakness of the brain evinces itself in impairment of 

 memory ; in slowness of apprehension ; in inability to fix the thoughts 

 long on one thing ; and the tendency, therefore, to wander from one 

 subject to another, and to travel to and fro, which may pass on to 

 want of control, or imbecility, or even to dementia, This last, saddest 

 state of all, was witnessed only in two of our centenarians. Indeed, 

 the brain in many held out as well as or better than other organs — 

 which may be regarded one of the bright rays, if not the brightest, 

 in the centenarian landscape. 



The weakness, or failing, seems to have been about equal in the 

 several great organs, showing that these organs presented to the last 

 that good balance of enduring strength which is so essential to lon- 

 gevity. The lungs are, through life, the most sensitive to atmospheric 

 changes, as well as to alterations in the conditions of the blood. 

 Hence, bronchitic and pneumonic affections are a common source of 

 distress, and a frequent cause of death at all periods of life ; but it 

 does not clearly appear that the very aged are more liable to them 

 than those less advanced in years. 



In the majority in our table, the action of the heart was regular, 

 the pulse small and compressible, and evidences of arterial degenera- 

 tion not manifest. In some of those who were auscultated, more or 

 less bruit was heard, indicating some valvular or arterial roughness ; 

 but it made no apparent impression, and the individuals were uncon- 

 scious of any defect. The slowness of micturition, mentioned in two 

 men, and the incontinence in three females, as well as the frequency 

 of micturition in three, may also be regarded as resulting from atony, 

 rather than from disease. Indeed, these old people had outlived the 

 period which is most liable to prostatic and other urinary troubles. 

 Other minor maladies and discomforts, of which we may conclude 

 that centenarians have their share, have, in many instances, probably 

 been thought not worthy of mention. 



Though the majority had suffered little from illness at former 

 periods, some up to the very end of their long life, yet it is not unsat- 

 isfactory to find that the effects of illnesses, even when severe, do not 

 always preclude longcvitv. One had rheumatic fever when young, 

 uinl rheumatism afterward ; one had epilepsy from seventeen to sev- 

 enty ; one had renal disease, with loss of sight, at thirty, from which 

 there was complete recovery ; one had an abscess connected with the 

 spine, a stiff knee from injury at fifty, and diarrhoea from seventy-five 

 to eighty, besides fevers and other ailments; one had gall-stones at 



