The British Medical Journal speaks of Dr. Boisy of Havre, who is one hundred and three. It is said he goes his rounds every day, his practice being chiefly among the poor. At one time he practiced in India. He has taken alcoholic beverages and smoked tobacco since his youth, although in moderation. His father, it is added, died at the age of one hundred and eight. Mr. William R. Salmon, living near Cowbridge, Glamorganshire, recently celebrated his one hundred and sixth birthday. Mr. Salmon was born at Wickham Market in 1790, and became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1809, the year in which Gladstone was born. He died April 11, 1896. In reference to this wonderful old physician the Journal of the American Medical Association, 1896, page 995, says--"William Reynold Salmon, M.R.C.S., of Penllyn Court, Cowbridge, Glamorganshire, South Wales, completed his one hundred and sixth year on March 16th, and died on the 11th of the present month--at the time of his death the oldest known individual of indisputably authenticated age, the oldest physician, the oldest member of the Royal College of Surgeons, England, and the oldest Freemason in the world. His age does not rest upon tradition or repute. He was the son of a successful and esteemed practicing physician of Market Wickham, Suffolk, England, and there is in the possession of his two surviving relatives, who cared for his household for many years, his mother's diary, in which is inscribed in the handwriting of a lady of the eighteenth century, under the date, Tuesday, March 16, 1790, a prayer of thankfulness to God that she had passed her 'tryall,' and that a son was born, who she hoped 'would prosper, be a support to his parents, and make virtue his chief pursuit.' The Royal College of Surgeons verified this record many years ago, and it was subsequently again authenticated by the authorities of the Freemasons, who thereupon enshrined his portrait in their gallery as the oldest living Freemason. The Salmon family moved to Cowbridge in 1796, so that the doctor had lived exactly a century in the lovely and poetic Vale of Glamorgan, in the very heart of which Penllyn Court is situated. Here on his one hundred and sixth birthday--a man of over middle height, with still long, flowing hair, Druidical beard and mustache, and bushy eyebrows--Dr. Salmon was visited by one who writes:--" 'Seen a few days ago, the Patriarch of Penllyn Court was hale and hearty. He eats well and sleeps well and was feeling better than he had felt for the last five years. On that day he rose at noon, dined at six, and retired at nine. Drank two glasses of port with his dinner, but did not smoke. He abandoned his favorite weed at the age of ninety, and had to discontinue his drives over his beautiful estate in his one hundredth year. One day is much the same as another, for he gives his two relatives little trouble in attending upon his wants. Dr. Salmon has not discovered the elixir of life, for the shadows of life's evening are stealing slowly over him. He cannot move about, his hearing is dulled, and the light is almost shut out from the "windows of his soul." Let us think of this remarkable man waiting for death uncomplainingly in his old-fashioned mansion, surrounded by the beautiful foliage and the broad expanse of green fields that he loved so much to roam when a younger man, in that sylvan Sleepy Hollow in the Vale of Glamorgan.'
"Eight weeks later he, who in youth had been 'the youngest surgeon in the army, died, the oldest physician in the world."Dr. William Hotchkiss, said to have reached the age of one hundred and forty years, died in St. Louis April 1, 1895. He went to St. Louis forty years ago, and has always been known as the "color doctor." In his peculiar practice of medicine he termed his patients members of his "circles," and claimed to treat them by a magnetic process. Dr. A. J. Buck says that his Masonic record has been traced back one hundred years, showing conclusively that he was one hundred and twenty-one years old. Aletter received from his old home in Virginia, over a year ago, says that he was born there in 1755.
It is comforting to the members of our profession, in which the average of life is usually so low, to be able to point out exceptions. It has been aptly said of physicians in general:
"Aliis inserviendo consumuntur; aliis medendo moriuntur," or "In serving others they are consumed; in healing others they are destroyed."Recent Instances of Longevity.--There was a man who died in Spain at the advanced age of one hundred and fifty-one, which is the most extraordinary instance from that country. It is reported that quite recently a Chinese centenarian passed the examination for the highest place in the Academy of Mandarins. Chevreul, born in 1786, at Angers, has only recently died after an active life in chemical investigation. Sir Moses Montefiore is a recent example of an active centenarian.
In the New York Herald of April 21, 1895, is a description and a portrait of Noah Raby of the Piscataway Poor Farm of New Jersey, to whom was ascribed one hundred and twenty-three years. He was discharged from active duty on the "Brandywine," U.S.N., eighty-three years ago. He relates having heard George Washington speak at Washington and at Portsmouth while his ship was in those places. The same journal also says that at Wichita, Kansas, there appeared at a municipal election an old negress named Mrs.
Harriet McMurray, who gave her age as one hundred and fifteen.
She had been a slave, and asserted that once on a visit to Alexandria with her master she had seen General Washington. From the Indian Medical Record we learn that Lieutenant Nicholas Lavin of the Grand Armee died several years ago at the age of one hundred and twenty-five, leaving a daughter of seventy-eight. He was born in Paris in 1768, served as a hussar in several campaigns, and was taken a prisoner during the retreat from Moscow. After his liberation he married and made his residence in Saratoff.