110 HUMAN LONGEVITY. 



determined in a sufficient number of animals, and with suffi- 

 cient exactness, to serve as a basis for numerical results. We 

 believe further that the relation of this period to the normal 

 duration of life in different animals, is nothing more than that 

 general proportion which every successive period bears to its 

 antecedents and consequents ; rendering each in some sort 

 a measure and index to the rest. What is called epiphysis 

 is a very limited phenomenon of growth ; and though seem- 

 ingly the last in the series of osseous developements, cannot 

 be admitted as an epoch in life, or as having any important 

 relation to other structural changes. We dispute then, 

 altogether, the right of M. Flourens to take it as his basis ; 

 and by applying his multiple of five, to make it tally with 

 what is evidently a foregone conclusion of his own as to the 

 length of life. This conclusion is not logically attained, and 

 is manifestly contradicted by facts. 



He appeals, however, to actual experience on behalf of his 

 doctrine that one hundred years is the natural life of man ; 

 and that its curtailment below this normal term is the result 

 of those errors and excesses in the manner of living, which 

 impair the organs and produce premature decay. And his 

 argument here mainly lies in the citation of those cases in 

 which life has been prolonged far beyond the average limit; 

 instances often of exaggerated or doubtful kind, but yet 

 numerous and authentic enough to be admitted as positive 

 facts in the natural history of man. While justly sceptical 

 as to examples which go beyond our own experience, we 

 cannot dispute the statements coming to us from various 

 sources, from diflgrent countries and periods of time, that 

 human beings have occasionally reached, and now and then 

 exceeded, the extraordinary age of 150 years. In our own 

 country, for example, though we may put aside as unproved 

 the case of Henry Jenkins, alleged (chiefly on his memory 

 of the battle of Flodden Field) to have lived 169 years; and 



