nstance is an old
magistrate known to Hufeland, who lived at Rechingen and who died in
1791 aged one hundred and twenty. In 1787, long after he had lost all
his teeth, eight new ones appeared, and at the end of six months they
again dropped out, but their place was supplied by other new ones, and
Nature, unwearied, continued this process until his death. All these
teeth he had acquired and lost without pain, the whole number amounting
to 150. Alice, a slave born in Philadelphia, and living in 1802 at the
age of one hundred and sixteen, remembered William Penn and Thomas
Story. Her faculties were well preserved, but she partially lost her
eyesight at ninety-six, which, strange to say, returned in part at one
hundred and two. There was a woman by the name of Helen Gray who died
in her one hundred and fifth year, and who but a few years before her
death had acquired a new set of teeth.

In Wilson's "Healthy Skin" are mentioned several instances of very old
persons in whom the natural color of the hair returned after they had
been gray for years. One of them was John Weeks, whose hair became
brown again at one hundred and fourteen. Sir John Sinclair a mentions a
similar case in a Scotchman who lived to one hundred and ten. Susan
Edmonds when in her ninety-fifth year recovered her black hair, but
previously to her death at one hundred and five again became gray.
There was a Dr. Slave who at the age of eighty had a renewal of rich
brown hair, which he maintained until his death at one hundred. There
was a man in Vienna, aged one hundred and five, who had black hair long
after his hair had first become white This man is mentioned as a
parallel to Dr. Slave. Similar examples are mentioned in Chapter VI.

It is a remarkable fact that many persons who have reached an old age
have lived on the smallest diet and the most frugal fare. Many of the
instances of longevity were in people of Scotch origin who subsisted
all their lives on porridges. Saint Anthony is said to have maintained
life to one hundred and five on twelve ounces of bread daily. In 1792
in the Duchy of Holstein there was an industrious laborer named Stender
who died at one hundred and three, his food for the most part of his
life having been oatmeal and buttermilk. Throughout his life he had
been particularly free from thirst, drinking little water and no
spirits.

Heredity.--There are some very interesting instances of successive
longevity. Lister speaks of a s