Thomas Parr of England died in 1635 at the age of 152. He married at the age of 84, “seemingly no older than many men at 40.” He was brought to London by Thomas, then Earl of Arundel, to see Charles I., “when he fed high, drank plentifully of wines, by which his body was overcharged, his lungs obstructed, and the habit of the whole body quite disordered; in consequence, there could not but be speedy dissolution. Had he not changed his diet, he might have lived another century.”—Easton.
The celebrated Dr. Harvey modern discoverer of the circulation of the blood, dissected the body and found every organ in perfect condition. Harvey said he found Parr’s cartilages soft and flexible, and “his testes were sound and large.”
Harvey expressed the opinion that Parr could have lived for another century. Then it is possible for every normal man to live that long, as Cosmic Law has no favorites and treats all men alike.
In his 102nd year Parr was found guilty of a misdemeanor, and facts were adduced at the trial which showed that this “man of 102 years really had the qualities of a powerful young man.” (Lorand, in Old Age Deferred). Shall we believe that this centenarian was found guilty of molesting some young woman?
Sir William Temple wrote that the Brahmins of India, at the time that country was discovered by the Europeans, lived to a great age. Some who subsisted mostly on rice reaching the age of 200, while some in other parts of India, who ate chiefly fruit and green herbs and drank only water, lived to be 300 years old.
HE LIVED 256 YEARS
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch of June 11th, 1933, reported the death of Li Chung-Yun, a Chinaman, at the amazing age of 256.
The account was written by Keith Kerman “of the Post-Dispatch Sunday Magazine Staff,” who said:
“According to the popular account, Li was mature enough when the great earthquake of 1703 wiped out 200,000 Japanese, to refrain from undignified rejoicing, and he was about to become a centenarian when Washington crossed the Delaware.
“A few years ago a professor in the Minkuo University reported that he had found records showing that Li was born in 1677, and had been congratulated by the Chinese government on his 150th and 200th birthdays.”
Li stated in his lifetime that he was born in the 16th year of the reign of the Emperor Kang Hsi, and related many stories of his youth that appeared to prove that he actually remembered events that occurred during the regime of that long-dead Mongol Monarch, whose reign began in 1661, and who died in 1722.
In further support of his claim of astonishing longevity, Li counted off 23 wives who had long since gone to the land from which no traveler returns.
In 1827 the Chinese government sent an official felicitation to Li on the occasion of his 150th birthday; and in 1877 the government again by letter congratulated him on his 200th birthday.
In May 1930, at the age of 252, Li was lecturing to the students at the University of Chang Fu. At the age of 209 he lectured twice each day, three hours at a time. Twenty-eight sessions in all were held. That task had taxed the energy of a man of 40, but Li left each lecture fresh in body and clear in mind.
Throughout the day Li behaved like a buoyant youth, who was enjoying the opportunity afford him to tell some 1500 of his listeners, whose ages ranged from 18 to 80, something of the secrets of longevity.
William M. Goodell says that he was in Canton in 1833 and heard considerable talk about Li, and learned that in the first century of his life he followed the occupation of a herb gatherer. He stated that Li “was a vegetarian who ate only herbs that grew above the ground, and fruits of high alkali content.”
According to the article by Kerman, some of the old men in Szechuan province said that their grandfathers, as boys, knew Li, and that he was then well along in years.
Much of the secret of Li’s long life is revealed in the statement that for the first century of his life he was an herb gatherer. In the pure, energizing air of the fields he laid the foundation that carried him through 256 years. Had he spent his early years grinding out his days in the sweat-shops of civilization, he had done well to live fifty years.
In his “Believe it or Not,” Ripley stated that Numas De Cugna of Bengal, India, lived to be 370 years old. He grew four new sets of teeth, and his hair turned from black to grey four times. He died in 1566.
Arphaxed, grandson of Noah, lived only 68 years longer than Cugna, dying at the age of 438 (Gen. 11:13).
Dyson Carter stated in The National Home Monthly that scientists now assert it is well within the range of possibility for the average man to live 550 years.
According to the press of October 16th, 1941, Dr. Maurice Earnest, “one of the world’s greatest authorities on longevity, said today,” the account states, “that man can be made to live 200 to 300 years.” He adds: “Many discoveries that point to the way of periodical rejuvenation have already been made.”
BODY NEVER MORE THAN SEVEN YEARS OLD
The body is incessantly renewing itself from the softest tissue to the hardest bone, and this process of renewal, according to physiologists, gives man a new body every seven years. In other words, the body is never more than seven years old no matter how many times the earth turns on its axis for a certain individual.
No “periodical rejuvenation” is needed for such a body unless bad habits and bad environment have plunged it into degeneracy and decrepitude, as in the case of Captain Diamond.
Most centenarians on earth now live far from the polluted centers of civilization and industrialism. They are usually people of little means, of humble circumstances, who have been forced to lead a simple life and subsist on common, natural foods.
Poverty is not the cause of sickness and short life, except insofar as it compels one to toil for a living in sweat-shops, filthy industrial plants, and stuffy offices filled with tobacco smoke and stagnant air.
In the above list of very old people no names of scientists and doctors appear. If they know how to live, their knowledge does them no good. Centenarians among scientists, doctors and the rich and opulent are rare, and when found it is discovered that they also live the simple life.
Poverty enforces sobriety, frugality and the simple life of Nature. This course conserves the body and prevents its vital channels from being clogged by excessive eating of denatured foods.
Professor Huxley fed worms as they usually eat, except one, which he fed the same, but occasionally fasted it. That worm was living and vigorous after nineteen generations of its relatives had been born, lived their regular time, and died. If that were done in the case of man, he would live approximately 2000 years.
FRUIT AND LONGEVITY
Herodotus wrote:
“The oldest inhabitants of Greece, the Pelasgians, who came before the Dorian, Ionian and Eolian migrations, inhabited Arcadia and Thessaly, possessing the islands of Lesbos and Lokemanos, which were full of orange groves. The people, with their diet of dates and oranges, lived on an average of more than 200 years.”
Hesoid said:
“The Pelasgians and the peoples who came after them in Greece, ate fruits of the virgin forests and blackberries from the fields.”
Plutarch observed:
“The ancient Greeks, before the time of Lycurgus, ate nothing but fruits.”
Onomacritus of Athens, a contemporary of Peisistratus, said:
“In the days before Lycurgus, each generation reached the age of 200 years.”
Philochorus said of the Pelasgians:
“Their heroic spirit and their strong arms to destroy their foe, were formed of shiny red apples from the forest. Apples were their favorite food, and the speed of their feet never lessened. They raced against stags and won. They lived for hundreds of years in the world of Cronus, but their vast stature never diminished as they grew old, even by a thumb’s breadth. The dark lustre of their black hair was never tainted by a single silver thread. They lived so long they tired the winds of measuring Time, soaring above them.”
What a blessing it would be for man if he co
uld go back to those glorious days.
DOCTORS DO NOT LIVE LONG
No doctors are found in the above list of aged people. Their average life-span is short. Their medical training makes them so artificial that they know little about the natural life.
The press of November 20th, 1941, reported that Dr. Richard C. Foster, President of the University of Alabama, “died last night of creeping paralysis” at the age of 46.
The Tampa Tribune of December 4th, 1945, stated that Dr. D. G. Meighan died in a Tampa Hospital after a long illness of six months, at the age of 47.
For eleven years he was in charge of the U. S. Public Service in Tampa; was county physician there from 1926 to 1933, and before that was resident physician at the Gordon Keller Hospital. He was district surgeon for the A.C.L. Railroad for three years, and during World War II was acting surgeon for the U. S. Coast Guard Unit in Tampa.
The press of May 13th, 1952, stated that Dr. Jacob C. Kaplan, psychiatrist formerly with the Veterans Administration in Lexington, Kentucky, “died yesterday in Jewish Hospital.” He was 54.
Dr. A. L. Bishop, age 57, professor of business administration at Yale since 1918, died May 8th, 1932, of “a heart attack.”
Dr. C. H. Ramelkamp, age 58, president of Illinois College since 1905, died April 5th, 1932, “after a long illness.”
Dr. Paul W. Horn, age 64, president of Texas Technological College, died April 13th, 1932, of “a heart attack.”
Dr. J. R. Robertson, age 68, head of the history and political department of Bera College, died April 15th, 1932, cause not given.
Dr. John Parmenter, age 70, one of the physicians who attended President McKinley after he was shot at Buffalo, died June 1st, 1932, cause not given.
The press of June 4th, 1944, reported that Dr. C. E. Ryan, ageing, age 60, nationally known physician, lecturer and writer on medical subjects, was “found dead in bed at his home about noon today.”
The press of June 4th, 1944, reported that Dr. C. E. Ryan, age 69, died of a heart attack as he was delivering a baby. Others stepped in to complete his duties.”
The press of February 3rd, 1945, reported that Dr. Irving S. Cutter, age 69, medical director of Passavant Hospital, Dean Emeritus of the Northwestern University Medical School, and health columnist, died today after an illness of several weeks.”
For more than a decade Dr. Cutter, who knew how to live only 69 years, wrote “an informative column, ‘How To Keep Well,” for the Chicago Tribune, and widely syndicated.” He tried to teach others “how to keep well” while knowing so little about the Cosmic Science of Health that he died “after an illness of several weeks” at an age when the ignorant Indians of the hills and forests are still in their prime.
The press of May 13th, 1952, stated that Dr. Frank A. S. Kautz, “prominent Cincinnati obstetrician, died yesterday at Jewish Hospital after a brief illness.” He was 76 and had practiced medicine “for more than 50 years.”
The press of January 8th, 1943, reported that “Dr. George W. Crile, famed 78-year-old surgeon-scientist, who believed that he performed the first direct blood transfusion, died today after receiving 25 of them in recent weeks.”
Medical doctors who discover the folly of medicine and give up the use of drugs, vaccines and serums and turn to natural methods of living, fare much better than regular orthodox doctors do, yet they are discredited by the medical organizations.
Dr. J. H. Tilden gave up the practice of medicine, turned to Nature’s way, and died September 1st, 1940 “in his 90th year.”
Dr. John Harvey Kellogg of Battle Creek fame, who for 67 years never missed a monthly contribution to his Good Health Journal which he edited all that time, and who ran a quarter of a mile each day, died in 1943 at the age of 91. He was a vegetarian for 76 years and seems not to have known that Vegetarianism is bad. He held that flesh carries too much contamination for safe consumption, and produces excessive intestinal putrefaction.
LIVE 200 TO 300 YEARS
Colonel Robert McCarrison of the British Army Medical Staff, reported that during ten years’ service in the Himalayan region he found no sickness of any sort in the colony of people where he was. He said:
“Ages well beyond 250 years were common. Men of well attested ages up to 150 years were recently married and raising families of children.
“Men said to be well over 200 years of age were working in the fields with younger men, doing as much work, and looking so much like the younger men, that I was not able to distinguish the old from the young.”
There is no secret about the vigorous health and long life of these natives. They breathe to live, drink to live, and eat to live.
In “20th Century Health Science” Dr. Francis X. Loughran said:
“There are many immediate reasons why people die, but there is no underlying necessary reason that any scientist has yet discovered. In short, there is no principle limiting life.”
Here is an extra item which came to our attention after finishing this lesson....
The Grit of January 20th, 1952, reports the case of J. R. Costello, age 87, of Winchester, Virginia, who had just finished cutting the seventh tooth of his third set. “Dentists are mystified,” adds the account.
LESSON NO. 19—WATER CAUSES AGING
“If hardening of the arteries could be prevented, our life-span would be pushed far beyond the dreams of man.”—Theo. R. Van Dellen, M.D., in his daily column “How To Keep Well” in the press of March 25th 1949.
Van Dellen regarded as a mystery the cause of the hardening process, and admitted that “medical science” has no remedy tor it. That made it another of the many so-called “incurable diseases.”
In Lesson No. 16 we saw that vegetarianism is one cause of the hardened condition which occurs in the body. At the age of 79, after being a vegetarian for thirty years, Captain Diamond suffered from a serious state of ossification of tissues and blood-vessels and stiffness of muscles and joints.
After given up to die by the doctors, Diamond turned for help to Nature, to the power that made him. He discarded vegetarianism, became a fruitarian, recovered health sufficiently to outlive all the doctors who gave him up as incurable, and reached the amazing age of 120. No one can say how long he might have lived had he been a fruitarian from the first.
A group of eminent doctors made a careful study of the common process of sclerosis. They found that certain earthy minerals contained in tubers and cereals are one cause of the condition of ossification that produces decrepitude and premature death.
One author states that the difference between youth and old age is a matter of chemical differences in the body, and not a question of years.
He reported the case of a little girl of four years who developed a salt-eating habit to such extent, that in less than a year her entire body began to harden, her face to wrinkle, and she showed all the signs of Old Age. And man still eats salt. He also smokes when he knows it is a short cut to the grave.
The youthful body is supple, elastic, vital; the aged body is stiff, rigid, creaky, sore, achey. The condition of the body not the passage of time, is the difference between a young man and an old man.
It was demonstrated in the case of Thomas Parr, who lived 152 years, that it is possible to prevent ossification of the body.
His case also demonstrated the dangers of eating freely of “nourishing food” as people are advised to do.
This writer’s maternal great grand-father was a vigorous man at the age of 110 when he died as the result of an accident.
These very old people “always die as the result of an accident,” one author says. The law of averages overtakes them when they live so long.
The body of the infant is soft and pliant. The bones are plastic and flexible. After birth the bones begin to fill-in with mineral salts. This mineralization increases the size of the bones and their solidity. For this reason the growing child needs considerable lime, comparatively speaking, in the form of calcium carbonate and phosphate.
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LESS MINERALS NEEDED AFTER MATURITY
The mineralization process is quite rapid until the body attains its growth. As growth stops, less lime salts are required for the body. This means that a change should be made in what one eats and drinks.
When mineral salts enter the mature body in excess of requirements, they can no longer be used to develop and solidify the bones. Body development is done. So the excess minerals now begin to form damaging deposits in the body and its organs.
Thus the soft, pliant body of childhood becomes the hardened, stiffened body of old age. The spryness of youth becomes the slowness of decrepitude. Vitality decreases; senility comes. There is no mystery about the change.
Dr. Logan Clendening wrote:
“In youth the arteries are elastic, but as the body grows old, they become stiffer on account of the replacement of their elastic tissues by fibrous tissues and lime salts.
“In many cases the arteries may be markedly thickened and even so calcified as to have earned the term ‘goose-neck arteries’ because the deposit of lime salts give them a corrugated feeling like that of a goose as one feels its neck.”—The Human Body.
It appears to be forgotten that the scleral process affects the entire body—cells, tissues, glands, blood-vessels. Some of the smallest blood-vessels become so hard and brittle that they burst under slight pressure.
CAUSES OF SCLEROSIS
The process of sclerosis, the condition of aging, rises from the following causes—
(1) Bad air, (2) Bad water, and (3) Bad food.
The student knows what we mean by “bad food.” He will soon know what we mean by “bad water.” Yet the food and water we call bad are consumed by millions and considered good.
Man’s Higher Consciousness Page 16