Читать книгу The Dawn of Modern Medicine онлайн

35 страница из 66

The Greek philosopher Pythagoras, who recommended care in the choice of one’s food, moderation in eating, and the cultivation of gymnastic exercises, attained a good old age. He claimed that after a man reached his eightieth year, no matter how great an age he might afterward attain, he should be reckoned among those who have ceased to live.

The measures which Hufeland enumerates as being specially conducive to longevity are those with which my readers—it may safely be assumed—are already familiar. The list comprises both those things which a man or a woman should carefully avoid, and those which often prove helpful in prolonging the period of one’s life, and which may be summed up in that old device: “Moderation in all things.”

On turning over the pages of the volume of Hufeland’s Journal in which are contained the issues of the first half of the year 1833, I came across the report of a very unusual case that was observed by a Dr. Heymann in the village of Oldendorf. His report reads as follows:—