439 



are infirm, feeble, degraded beings, incapable of re-producing an exist- 

 ence, which has fallen to them, in the midst of a healthy, vigorous, and 

 robust population. 



We are not to believe what some travellers have written on the exis- 

 tence of tribes of giants, that have appeared on the Magellanic coast. 

 The Patagonians, concerning whose stature there is so little agreement 

 in relations, are men very well formed, and whose stature does not ex- 

 ceed ours more than nine or ten inches. The Laplanders, whose stature 

 is the smallest, are as much below, as the Patagonians are above ; it 

 does not exceed from four feet to four and a half. In the midst of our- 

 selves, individuals reach from time to time, a stature sufficient to entitle 

 them to the name of gaints, whilst others, shrunk in all their propor- 

 tions, are a renewal of the pymies. Such was Bebe, the dwarf of Stan- 

 islaus, king of Poland; Goliah, spoken of in the book of Kings, chap, 

 xvii. v. 4; the king Og, Deut. chap. iii. v. 2; and many others, whose 

 stature varies from six to ten feet high. 



CCXXXVIII. Of old age and decrepitude. The human body, which, 

 from the twentieth year of life, ceases to grow in height, increases in 

 every dimension during the twenty succeeding years. After this period, 

 far from growing, it begins to decay, and loses daily a part of its strength. 

 The decay proceeds at the same rate as the growth, and is not more ra- 

 pid, since man requires from thirty to forty years in reaching to his full 

 growth, and takes about the same time in his progress to the grave, pro- 

 vided no accident hurries him to an untimely end*. The whole bulk of 

 the body diminishes!, the cellular tissue becomes collapsed, and the skin 

 wrinkled, especially that of the forehead and face. The hairs of the 

 head and over the rest of the body turns gray, then white; the organic 

 action becomes languid; the fluids become more disposed to putrefaction 

 (Hunter;) hence, at this period of life, all diseases of debility are more 

 frequent, and attended >with greater danger. 



Decay succeeds old age. The sensibility of the organs is blunted; the 

 physical and intellectual faculties undergo a gradual decay; man ceases 



* The duration of life may be estimated by that of the growth. A dog ceases to 

 grow at the end of two or three years, and lives only ten or twelve ; man, whose 

 growth requires a space of from twenty to thirty years, attains to the age of ninety or 

 a hundred. Fishes live several centuries, their developement requiring- a considerable 

 number of years Author's Note. 



f- The diminution of the entire bulk of the body of aged persons frequently gives 

 place to an augmentation of size, especially of the trunk of the body. This is en- 

 tirely owing to the increased deposit of fat, which often supervenes at this age, and 

 which appears to depend on the energy of the system being insufficient to the com- 

 plete assimilation of the nutritive materials, and on the slow circulation of the blood in 

 the capillary vessels, which state of the circulation seems to give rise to the predomi- 

 nence of hydrogen and carbon in the blood which these vessels and the ve.ns contain. 

 The abundance of these elements in the extreme vessels being the source whence the 

 fat is so largely formed, the combination of them into that particular substance is the 

 result of the same state of the vital energies which favours their predominance. The 

 increase of bulk, owing to this augmentation of the secretion of fat, in persons ad- 

 vanced in life, is far from being favourable to the free exercise of the various functions ; 

 for certain organs being incommoded with the weight and bulk which they thus ac- 

 quire, are still further embarrassed in their organic movements, the circulation in the 

 extreme vessels is rendered still slower, and thus the cause of the increased secretion 

 of fat goes on increasing. This sufficiently accounts for the fact, that, in general, lean^ 

 ness is at an advanced age more favourable to long life, than the opposite state, 



