I. Abstract
In this conference, speakers discuss the concept of human lifespan, whether it can be extended, and how it might have changed through the ages. Speakers consider how life might be lengthened through early modern understandings of medicine, often appealing to ideas of the Greeks, such as Hippocrates—the “Father of Medicine”—and the physician Galen. They also discuss biblical and mythological figures who were said to have lived long lives.
II. Basic Concepts
People of the seventeenth century believed that a lifetime beyond a hundred years might be possible because of the purported lifetimes of biblical figures such as Adam, Methuselah, and other Patriarchs, whose years numbered in the hundreds. Given the authoritative evidence of lengthy lives in the Bible, men such as Sir Francis Bacon concluded that lifespans had grown shorter due to the combined effects of “the Great Deluge[…]long droughts and earthquakes [that] had made the land less fertile, or the air less pure.”[1] Bacon’s response to the issue of a lifespan reflected the biblical notion of humanity’s folly: shorter lives were, ultimately, the consequence of original sin. It also raised the question at the heart of the conference: whether it is possible to extend human life through medicine, lifestyle, diet or other interventions.
Central to understanding this conference are the Greek medicinal concepts of heat and moisture which were embedded within their conceptualizations of humoral medicine. As a person grew from youth to old age, they would have moved from a moist heat to a a wet cold on the humoral scale.[2] Because heat was associated with vitality, in the metaphor of life as an oil lamp one in their prime would be associated with a “full flame” and would contain stores of innate moisture. Early medicine saw death as the extinguishing of the body’s vital heat, and its occurrence was determined by the given ratio between heat and moisture, one’s “complexion.”[3] “Radical moisture” was a Galenic medical concept that expressed belief in an inborn moisture that all living things contained. In the same way that a flame lives by consuming oil, the Innate Heat of the body was believed to have lived by consuming the radical moisture, gradually depleting it until death.
The idea that chemical medicine could cure illness came from Paracelsus, a 16th century radical German physician whose theories borrowed from the medical theories of the Greeks. In his A Book Concerning Long Life, Paracelsus took up the Grecian metaphor of a “burning fire” inside humans that gradually dried out radical moisture until death. He believed that. in the same way that wood could prolong a fire, with the right medicine humans could live an unlimited number of years.[4] Paracelsus believed in the abilities of “diet, disposition of the body, and medicine” to help augment lifetimes, but believed primarily in medicine which, in his mind, contained Quintessence: some central element in all life, necessary to all life.[5]
Paracelsus’s studies spawned what would become the field of iatrochemistry which involved the branches of both chemistry and medicine, but had its roots in alchemy. Like those who believed in bodily humors, iatrochemists believed that health was attributable to a balance of certain bodily fluids. Flemish chemist Jean Baptista van Helmont, initially a follower of Paracelsus, branched apart from his findings and began to define the body in chemical terms, studying gases and the chemical processes of fermentation.[6] Another chemist, Johann Rudolph Glauber, believed that because salt contained both acidic and alkaline properties, that it was essential for fermentation and could act as a preservative.[7] Building upon Glauber’s ideas, an English chemist named Thomas Willis viewed fermentation as the root of a “life spirit” which was circulated through the body by the blood.[8] As such, early chemical findings often focused on fermentation and aspects involved in the early study of humoral medicine. Some 17th century commercial elixirs were successful through their basis upon early ideas of medicine, but as a whole the belief in chemistry to significantly prolong life waned.[9] Early patrons of the medicinal field were thought to have been useful for their ability to prescribe a healthy regimen for one to follow, but the regimens didn’t significantly prolong life; instead, they helped only insofar as one could achieve a “natural death.”[10]
Above text authored by Ashley Gilly
III. Conference XXXI.
I. Whether the Life of a Man may be prolong’d by Art.
THe duration of a motion or action cannot be known, unless the measure of it be known; nor can they be measur’d unless they have known bounds. Whence neither can it be known whether the Life may be prolong’d, without knowing before-hand how long it lasts. Now ’tis impossible to know this duration. For, not to mention the long lives of the Fathers in the two first thousand years of the world, God told Noah, that the age of Man should be no more then but sixscore years. Moses and David restrain it to seventy or eighty. And yet as there are at this day some who come near a hundred, so there are a hundred times as many who do not attain thirty. And whereas no body can speak of Death by experience, because they who speak of it have not felt it, and they who have felt it cannot speak of it more; the case is the same concerning Life. Let a Man, by good order, or the use of remedies, live as long as he will, it will not be believ’d that his life ha’s been prolong’d; but, on the contrary, that his hour was not yet come. Nevertheless ’tis no less consistent with reason, to say, that he who would infallibly have dy’d of a Gangrene which invaded his Legg, and thereby the rest of his Body, hath had his life prolong’d by cutting off his Legg; or that he who was wounded in the crural vein, at which all his blood would have soon issu’d forth, ha’s been secur’d from death by the Chirurgion, who stop’d the blood; then to believe, as we do, that a Rope-maker lengthens his rope by adding new stuff to that which was ended; that a Gold-smith makes a chain of Gold longer by fastning new links to it; that a Smith causes his fire to last more by putting fresh coals to it. And as, in all this, there is nothing which crosses our Reason; so if a sick man, who is visibly going to dye, receives help, and escapes, do’s he not owe the more glory to God for having not onely cur’d him by the hands of the Physitian, or by spiritual Physick alone, but also prolong’d his Life, as he did to King Hezekias, whose Life was lengthened fifteen years, and of which our age wants not example? If it be objected that this may hold in violent deaths, whereof the causes may be avoided, but that ’tis not credible that a decrepit old man, who hath spun out his Life to the last, can continue it; the nature and Etymology of the radical moisture not admitting a possibility of restauration; I answer, that reasons taken from the original of words, are not the strongest; and that besides there are roots which endure more, and others less, according as they are well or ill cultivated. And if the reason drawn from contraries be considerable, being many poysons are so quick that they corrupt the radical moisture in an instant, ought we to conceive Nature so much a step-dame as that she hath not produc’d something proper to restore it? And that Humane Industry is so dull and little industrious in the thing which Man desires most, which is long Life, that it cannot reach to prepare some matter for the support, yea, for the restauration of that Original Humidity? Considering that we are not reduc’d to live onely by what is about us, as Plants and Plant-animals do, but all the world is open and accessible to our search of Aliments and Medicines. Moreover, we have examples not onely of a Nestor who liv’d three ages; of an Artephius who liv’d as many, and many more; and the Herb Moly, the Nectar and Ambrosia of the Poets, which kept their gods from growing old, may well be taken for a figure of the Tree of Life, which was design’d for separation of this Humidity, but also of compositions proper to produce that effect. Yea, were it not actually so, yet ’tis not less possible; and God hath not in vain promis’d as a Reward to such as honour their Superiors, to prolong their dayes upon the earth.
The Second said, If Medaea found Herbs, as the Poets say, to lengthen the Life of Aeson the Father of Jason, the Daughters of Aelias miscarried of their purpose. Indeed every thing that lives needs Heat for exercising its Actions, and Humidity to sustain that Heat; the duration of this Heat in the Humidity is Life, which lasts as long as the one is maintain’d by the other; like the lighted wick in a Lamp. Now Nature dispenses to every one from the Birth as much of this Heat and Moisture as she pleases, to one for fifty, to another for sixty, seventy, eighty years or more; which ended, the stock is spent. Physick may husband it well, but cannot produce it anew; Aliments never repair it perfectly, no more then Water doth Wine, which it increases indeed, but weakens too, when mingled therewith.
The Third back’d this Suffrage with the opinion of Pythagoras, who held that our Life is a strait line; that the accidents which disturb it, and at length bring Death, constitute another; and accordingly (saith he) as these two lines incline less or much towards one another, Life is long or short; because the Angle of their incidence, and at which they cut, which is our Death, happens sooner or later; and it would never happen, if these two lines were parallel. Now the meeting of these two lines cannot be deferr’d or put off.
The Fourth said, ‘Twere a strange thing if Humane Art could repair all other defects of the Body and Mind, excepting that whereof there is most need, and all Ages have complain’d, Brevity of Life. For our Understanding hath much less need of an Art of Reasoning, our tongue of an Art of speaking, our legs of dancing, then our Life of being continu’d, since ’tis the foundation of all the rest. Besides, Physick would seem useless without this. For though it serv’d only to asswage the pains of diseases, (which is a ridiculous opinion) yet it would thereby protract the time of Death, to which pain is the way.
The Fifth said, That for the preservation of Life, ’tis requisite to continue the marriage of Heat and moisture, Death alwayes hapning immediately upon their disjunction, and leaving the contrary qualities in their room, Cold and Dryness. Now to know how Heat must be preserv’d, we must observe how ’tis destroy’d. And that is four wayes I. By Cold, which being moderate, fights with it; but violent, wholly destroyes it. II. By suffocation, or smothering, when the Pores are stop’d, and the issue of fuliginous vapours hindred: Thus Fire dyes for want of Air. III. By its dissipation, which is caus’d by hot medicaments, violent exercise, and immoderate heat of the Sun or Fire: Whence proceeds a Syncope or Deliquium of the Heart. IV. By want of Aliment, without which it can no more last a moment, then Fire without wood or other combustible matter. All agree that the three first Causes may be avoided, or at least remedied. And as for the Fourth, which is doubled of, I see nothing that hinders but that as the spirits of our bodies are perfectly repair’d by the Air we incessantly breathe; so Aliments, or some Specificks, as, as amongst others, Gold dissolv’d in some water not corrosive, may in some manner restore the fewel of our Heat. And seeing there are found burning Mountains, in which the Fire cannot consume so much matter apt for burning, but it alwayes affords it selfother new, which makes it subsist for many Ages: Why may not a matter be prepar’d for our Natural Heat, which though not neer so perfect as that which it consum’d, (for were it so, an Animal would be immortal) yet may be more excellent then ordinary Aliments, and by this means prolong our Lives. And this must be sought after, not judg’d impossible.
The Sixth said, That Life consisting in the Harmony and proportion of the four first qualities, and in the contemperation of the four Humours; there’s no more requir’d for the prolonging of Life, but to continue this Harmony. Which may be done, not onely by a good natural temper, but also by the right use of external things; as pure Air, places healthful and exposed to the Eastern winds, Aliments of good juice, sleep sufficiently long, exercises not violent, passions well rul’d, and the other things; whose due administration must prolong Life by the same reason that their abuse or indiscreet usage diminishes it.
The Seventh said, That Life consists in the salt which contains the Spirit that quickens it, and is the preservative Balsame of all compounds. The vivifying Spirit of Man is inclos’d in a very volatile Armoniack Salt, which exhales easily by Heat, and therefore needs incessant reparation by Aliments. Now to preserve Life long, it is requsite to fix this volatile salt; which is done by means of another salt extracted by Chymistry, which is not onely fix’d, but also capable to fix the most volatile. For the Chymists represent this salt incorruptible in it self, and communicating its virtue to other bodies: Upon which account they stile it Quintessence, Aethereal Body, Elixir, and Radical Balsame, which hath a propriety to preserve not onely living bodies many Ages, but dead, from corruption.
IV. Further Reading
Aristotle, “On Youth and Old Age, on Life and Death, on Breathing.” classics.mit.edu.
Haycock, David Boyd, and Patrick Wallis, “Quackery and Commerce in Seventeenth-Century London: the Proprietary Medicine Business of Anthony Daffy,” Medical History Supplement 25, (2005): pp. 1-216.
Huffman, Carl. “Pythagoras.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2005.
Moran, Bruce T. “A Survey of Chemical Medicine in the 17th Century: Spanning Court, Classroom, and Cultures,” Pharmacy in History 38, no. 3 (1996): pp. 121-133.
Niebyl, Peter H. “Old Age, Fever, and the Lamp Metaphor,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 26, no. 4 (October 1971): pp. 351-368.
Pickstone, John V. “Sketching Together the Modern Histories of Science, Technology, and Medicine,” Isis 102, no. 1 (2011): pp. 123–133.
Reynolds, Philip Lyndon. Food and the Body: Some Peculiar Questions in High Medieval Theology. Brill, 1999.
Stolberg, Michael. Experiencing Illness and the Sick Body in Early Modern Europe. Springer, 2011.
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[1] David Boyd Haycock, “‘A thing ridiculous’? Chemical medicines and the prolongation of human life in seventeenth-century England.” Working Papers on the Nature of Evidence: How Well do ‘Facts’ Travel? (October 2006): 7.
[2] “The World of Shakespeare’s Humors.” U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, 19 Sept. 2013.
[3] Land, Karine Van’t, “Long Life, Natural Death: The Learned Ideal of Dying in Late Medieval Commentaries on Avicenna’s Canon.” Early Science and Medicine 19, no.6 (2014): 562.
[4] Haycock, 12-13.
[5] Haycock, 13.
[6] Moran, Bruce T. “A Survey of Chemical Medicine in the 17th Century: Spanning Court, Classroom, and Cultures.” Pharmacy in History (1996): 126.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Moran, 128.
[9] Haycock, 30.
[10] Land, 575.
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[a]The passage alluded to is Genesis 6:3.
[b]The passage alluded to is Psalm 90:10.
[c]The passage alluded to is 2 Kings 20.
[d]In Greek mythology, Medaea was a mythical enchantress who, through magic, helped Jason of Jason and the Argonauts complete his tasks to get the golden fleece.The “Daughters of Aelias” likely refers to the daughters of Pelias, the king of Iolcus. Pelias’s daughters wanted their father to become youthful as Jacob’s father had, and Medea tricked them into killing their father by demonstrating falsely how cutting up an old ram and tossing it into a pot of herbs could turn it into a young one; they followed suit.
[e]Pythagoras was a Greek philosopher famed for his mathematical theories. Amongst other things, he sought to interpret the world in terms of numbers, and subscribed to a belief in metempsychosis: the idea that upon death, one’s soul was reborn inside of an animal. Pythagoras’s conception of life and death as two lines that intersect to form some undetermined angle of incidence is indicative of his belief in the ability to represent natural matters through mathematical relationships.
[f]The seventh speaker posits that iatrochemists are searching for the elixir of life, and one of the ways in which they are doing so is through the study of the preservative capabilities of salt. Iatrochemists sought to represent bodily health in terms of chemical processes, and usually prescribed chemical medicines, such as the salts mentioned by the speaker, to preserve the balance of bodily fluids.