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.

  • Cornaro, Luigi, 1475-1566.
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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    withstanding that he lived in the time of this devouring pestilence, he never caught the least infection; which those writers unanimously ascribe to that uninterrupted temperance which he always observed. And here I cannot but mention an observation which I have often made, upon reading the lives of the philoso- phers, and comparing them with any series of kings or great men of the same number. If we consider these ancient sages, a great part of whose philosophy consisted in a temperate and abstemious course of life, one would think the life of a philosopher and the life of a man were of two different dates. For we find that the generality of these wise men were nearer a hundred than sixty years of age at the time of their respective deaths. But the most remarkable instance of the efficacy of temper- ance toward the procuring of long life, is what we meet with in a little book published by Louis Coenako the Venetian; which I the rather mention, because it is of undoubted credit, as the late Venetian ambassador, who was of the same family, attested more than once in conversation, when he resided in England. Cornaro, who was the author of the little Treatise I am men- tioning, was of an infirm constitution, till about forty; when, by obstinately persisting in an exact course of temperance, he recovered a perfect state of health; inso- much that at fourscore he published his book, which has been translated into English under the title of A Sure and Certain Method of Attaining a Long and Healthy [20]