222 OF THE PROLONGATION 



or more years, is proved by many examples, and is 

 doubted of by no phylician that underflands his art. 

 The famous italian lawyer, Panigarolus, who was very 

 weakly from his youth, by a regular and moderate life, 

 attained to an age of more than feventy years. Leoni- 

 cenus, the phylician, who from his childhood, to his 

 thirtieth year, had been afflicted with the falling lick- 

 nefs, was freed from it at that age by his great mode- 

 ration, and lived healthily thenceforward till he attain- 

 ed to his ninety- feventh year. Another, whom Car- 

 danus mentions, took daily no more than fix and thirty 

 ounces of nourifhment, and lived to be upwards of 

 ninety. In the year 1780. there was Hill living in 

 jpanifh America, a woman more than 175 years old.* 

 But the moll ftriking infrance of this kind, and the 

 greater! proof how long the human machine may be 

 kept in play by moderation and diet, is that of 

 Cornaro. 



Lewis Cornaro, a Venetian nobleman, had brought 

 Ms body into fuch a rtate of decay in his thirty-lixth 

 year, by excefTes of all forts, that the phylicians allured 

 him. that he mult, foon die, unlefs he could refolve on 

 altering his mode of life. Cornaro had refolution 

 enough immediately to fet about this important change* 

 He confined himfelf to a certain quantity of food, 

 exa&Iy weighed out to him daily, kept himfelf from 

 all excels in wine, from all violent paflions, and all 

 intimate ihtercourfe with the other fex. With this re- 

 gimen he lived healthy, alert, and without feeling any 



* Memoirs of the literary and phitofophicai fociety of Manchefler, 

 vol. I, 1 



of 



