Note 70 — AN ACCOUNT OF THE STATE OF THE BODY AND MIND IN OLD AGE; WITH OBSERVATIONS ON ITS DISEASES, AND THEIR REMEDIES.

The venerable old man, whose history first suggested this remark, was born in New-York in the year 1684. His grandfather lived to be 101, but was unable to walk for thirty years before he died, from an excessive quantity of fat. His mother died at 91. His constant drinks were water, beer, and cyder. He had a fixed dislike to spirits of all kinds. His appetite was good, and he ate plentifully during the last years of his life. He seldom drank any thing between his meals. He was never intoxicated but twice in his life, and that was when a boy, and at sea, where he remembers perfectly well to have celebrated, by a feu de joye, the birth-day of queen Anne. He was formerly afflicted with the head-ach and giddiness, but never had a fever, except from the small-pox, in the course of his life. His pulse was slow, but regular. He had been twice married. By his first wife he had eight, and by his second seventeen children. One of them lived to be 83 years of age. He was about five feet nine inches in height, of a slender make, and carried an erect head to the last year of his life.