Old age : the results of information received respecting nearly nine hundred persons who had attained the age of eighty years, including seventy-four centenarians / by George Murray Humphry.
- Date:
- 1889
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Old age : the results of information received respecting nearly nine hundred persons who had attained the age of eighty years, including seventy-four centenarians / by George Murray Humphry. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![elasticity.—Muscles firm and red—very different from the oily muscles of my other centenarian [mentioned at p. 103].— Sigmoid lateral curvature of the spine. This in a measure accounts for low stature.—Aorta showed a corresponding curvature. The Brain was firm and healthy. The cerebral convolutions were wide apart and somewhat wasted as you will see [this refers to an excellent model of the head and brain presented by Prof. Cunningham and placed in the Museum of the University of Cambridge], and the gaping fissures were occupied by watery subarachnoid fluid.” The elasticity of the Thorax, the small size of the Spleen and Peyer’s Glands, the healthy condition of the Arteries and the Costal Cartilages, and the wasted state of the convolutions of the Brain correspond, on the whole, with the accounts given (pages 93 to 109) of the nine other examinations of centenarians. But the Heart is stated to have been small and the Lymphatic Glands not atrophied. Prof. Cunningham tells me that this old man never took alcohol in any form, and did not smoke, that he was an industrious respectable man who spent a very large part of his life as a market gardener in the neighbourhood of London; that he said he had been pressed into the Royal Marines about 1800 and served several yeai’S, that he remembered Nelson well and the story of Lady Hamilton, and that he had scars of what appeared to be sabre-cuts on his head; Professor Cunningham adds that the information received from the Admiralty is that during the period of Nelson’s command there was only one James Conway in the Royal Marines. He entered the service in 1796 at the age of 18. “Should this be the Conway in question he must have been 111 and not 106 years of age.” The numerous examples of longevity among the Irish will](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21949153_0232.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
