The art of living long : a new and improved English version of the treatise / by the celebrated Venetian centenarian Louis Cornaro, with essays by Joseph Addison, Lord Bacon, and Sir William Temple.

  • Luigi Cornaro
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The art of living long : a new and improved English version of the treatise / by the celebrated Venetian centenarian Louis Cornaro, with essays by Joseph Addison, Lord Bacon, and Sir William Temple. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    the story of a personal participation in the many indescribable blessings, which, for so many years, it had been his lot to enjoy ; nor had any one, after recovering broken health, lived to such an age to tell the world how he had done so. The one thought uppermost in his heart was that of gratitude for his recovery, and for the countless blessings of his long life. This sentiment he hoped would ever continue to bear substantial fruit; for he lived and died in the belief that his labors in writing a faithful account of his experience, would result, for all time, in benefiting those who would listen to him. He was convinced that if he, who had begun life under so many disadvantages, could attain perfect health and continue in it for so many years, the possibilities of those blessed with a perfect constitution and aided, from child- hood, with the temperate rule of life, must indeed be almost unlimited. It will be difficult to find anywhere recorded an instance wherein constitutional defects, aggravated by unwise habits of life, threatened a more untimely death ; and if Cor- naro, with a constitution naturally weak and apparently ruined at the age of forty, could attain such results, who will presume to set a limit to the possibilities of longevity for the human family, after consecutive generations have faithfully observed Nature's wise laws? Loaded with testimonials of the gratitude and rever- ence of many who had profited by his example and advice,— which knowledge of this benefit to others was, as he assures us, among the sweetest of his many blessings,—he passed the evening of his life honored by all, and in the enjoyment of the friendship and esteem of the most eminent of his countrymen. Having devoted his best years to the accom- plishment of what he firmly believed to be his mission in this world,—a consecrated task, that of bringing home to his fel- low-men the realization of the inevitable consequences of intemperance,—he patiently waited for the end. When death came, it found him armed with the resignation of the phi- losopher and a steadfastly courageous faith in the future, ready and glad to resign his life. Peacefully, as he had expected and foretold, he died at his palace in Padua, April [30]
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