96 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Food — Drink — Stimulants. — The blanks tell one simple story, 

 with so few variations as to be positively monotonous, in relation 

 to the food eaten by these old people. The diet has been regular 

 New England home-dishes of meat, vegetables, and pastry, with 

 breakfast early, dinner at noon, and supper late. Very few are 

 mentioned as small eaters or large eaters ; most are mentioned as 

 not particular, with good appetites through life. A half-dozen 

 never eat meat, and two have abstained from water. More than 

 two thirds have been habitual users of tea and coffee, and of the 

 remainder nearly all have drunk tea. Few of the men, and none 

 of the women, are given as users of more intoxicating beverages 

 than cider, and not a dozen out of all have ever used liquors to 

 excess. Ten of the women are mentioned as habitual smokers, 

 and a score as snuff -takers. Of the men, a large majority have 

 used tobacco — either chewing, smoking, or both. Most of the 

 tobacco-users have been moderate, although numbers of cases are 

 given where the amount consumed is enormous, and continued 

 constantly up to the time when the census was taken. A few 

 broke away from the habit after it had lasted for twenty, thirty, 

 or fifty years, and have now been without the narcotic for perhaps 

 a decade or more. 



Sickness. — The record of sickness is so varied that scarcely 

 half a dozen cases are alike out of the whole long list, except 

 where there has been no illness other than the usual complaints 

 of infancy. 



Out of 1,04:9 men, 382 never were ill since early childliood ; and 

 of 880 women, 286 have enjoyed the same good health. One hun- 

 dred and fourteen men and 171 women have had petty diseases 

 only, and 495 men and 402 women have been seriously ill. The 

 serious illness of the majority was a fever of some sort, typhoid 

 heading the list. The other diseases are as numerous almost as 

 the individuals afflicted, running from Asiatic cholera to shingles, 

 and the attacks have been at all periods of life. As might be sup- 

 posed, rheumatism is the most general complaint, usually in con- 

 junction with other diseases. Locality seems to have had no 

 influence on sickness, the same disorders appearing on high land 

 and on low land, on dry land and on moist land, in the interior 

 and by the sea-shore. 



Parents and Children. — The average age reached by the 

 parents and grandparents, taken together, of these old people was 

 about sixty-five, and in few instances have both the father and 

 mother or the grandfathers and grandmothers died under fifty, 

 although in many cases — about twenty-five per cent — either the 

 father or the mother has died before reaching this age. Not over 

 one third of the children of these aged people have reached mid- 

 dle life, and about one half died either in infancy or before thirty. 



