56 Human Longevity. 



generally attain full age. Chemists and druggists, in labora- 

 tories, are sickly and consumptive. Potters, affected through 

 the pores of the skin, become paralytic, and are remarkably 

 subject to constipation. Hatters, grocers, bakers and chimney 

 sweepers (a droll association) also suffer through the skin ; but 

 although the irritation occasions diseases, they are not, except 

 in the last class, fatal. Dyers are healthy and long-lived. 

 Brewers are, as a body, far from healthy. Under a robust 

 and often florid appearance, they conceal chronic diseases of 

 the abdomen, particularly a congested state of the venous sys- 

 tem. When these men are accidentally hurt or wounded, 

 they are more liable than other individuals to severe and dan- 

 gerous effects. Cooks and confectioners are subjected to 

 considerable heat. Our common cooks are more unhealthy 

 than housemaids. Their digestive organs are frequently dis- 

 ordered ; they aie subject to headache, and their tempers 

 rendered irritable. Glassworkers are healthy. Glassblowers 

 often die suddenly. 



Literary occupations do not appear to be more injurious to 

 long life than many others. Many of the first literati, most 

 distinguished for application throughout life, have attained 

 old age, both in modern and ancient times. In the ancient 

 authors, numerous instances of this kind are recorded, many of 

 w'hich may be found collected in the work of Hufeland, al- 

 ready alluded to. — We will add a few instances of extraordi- 

 nary longevity. The Englishman Parr, who was born in 1483, 

 married when at the age of 120, retained his vigor till 140, 

 and died at the age of 152, from plethora. Harvey, the distin- 

 guished discoverer of the circulation of the blood, who dis- 

 sected him, found no decay of any organ. Henry Jenkins, who 

 died in Yorkshire, in 1670, is, perhaps, the greatest authentic 

 instance of longevity. He lived 169 years. Margaret Foster, 

 a native of Cumberland, England, died in 1771, aged 136; and 

 James Lawrence, a Scotchman, lived 140 years. A Dane, 

 named Drakenberg, died in 1772, in his 147th year; and 

 John Effingham, or Essingham, died in Cornwall, in 1757, 

 aged 144. In 1792, a soldier named Mittelstedt, died at the 

 age of 112. Joseph Surrington, a Norwegian, died at Bergen 

 in 1797, aged 100 years. The St. Petersburg papers announced, 

 in 1830, the death of a man 150 years old, at Moscow ; and, 

 in 1831, the death of a man in Russia, 165 years old, was re- 

 ported. On May 7, 1830, died a man named John Ripkey, 

 at the age of 108, in London. His sight remained good till 

 the last. In 1830, a poor man, near lake Thrasimene, died 

 123 years old. He preserved his faculties to the last. In 



