SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN ONE HUNDRED AND SIX YEARS OLD. 151 



Everard Home in the second plate of his second volume upon the 

 diseases of this gland must have resembled the one just described 

 very closely. The lateral lobes were large, and in the veins forming 

 the prostatic plexus some little blood was observed, but by no 

 means a large quantity. 



A uterus masculinus of one-third of an inch was present ; the 

 vasa deferentia opening anterior to it, one on either side. 



A semi-lunar fold of mucous membrane of three-eighths of an 

 inch in length projected on either side of the veru montanum from 

 the lateral lobe of the prostate, with its free edge towards the 

 membranous part of the urethra. Some yellowish fluid was con- 

 tained in the spermatic vesicles and ends of the vasa deferentia ; it 

 contained a great number of free nuclei, but no spermatozoa. 



The scrotum was not opened, but I could not detect any testes 

 within it, though the epididymis was easily recognisable within 

 either compartment. Dr. Davy was informed by the old man, in the 

 summer of 1861, that it was not till the age of 100 that he lost 

 virile power, and that it was then his health began to fail. This 

 coincidence of failures seems in accordance with the conclusion 

 come to by Dr. Davy, in his * Anatomical and Physiological Re- 

 searches,' vol. i. p. 33J, to the effect that, with the exception of 

 consumption, wasting diseases terminating in death have the effect 

 of arresting the spermatic secretion. M. Duplay 1 , however, who 

 examined the contents of the seminal vesicles in 51 cases of old 

 men, and found spermatozoa in as many as 37 of these cases, 

 these 37 being mostly above 70 years of age, remarks that nearly 

 half of them died of chronic diseases, and that some modification of 

 Dr. Davy's views seems necessitated by his statistics. That Thomas 

 Parr retained virile power to the age of 100 is only too well 

 known; and in the 'Derby Mercury'' for November 12, 1863, I 

 find an account of a congratulatory dinner given to a centenarian, 

 Mr. Foster, whose ' firstborn child, if now living, would have at- 

 tained her seventy-eighth year ; and whose last, the only one left, 

 had celebrated her tenth birthday but a few days before.' 



Dr. Luigi Berrutr's recently published account of an Italian who 

 died at the age of 104, besides furnishing a singularly close his- 

 torical parallel to the case of Thomas Parr, shows us that the 



1 Geist, 'Klinik der Greisenkrankheiten,' vol. i. p. 147 ; 'Archives Ge'ne'rales de 

 Me"decine,' Dec. 1852, 1853 ; Schmidt's 4 Jahrbiicher,' 1853, No. 4; ^56, No. 2. 



