8. I have not found that _acute_, nor that all _chronic_ diseases shorten human life. Dr. Franklin had two successive vomicas in his lungs before he was 40 years old. I met with one man beyond 80, who had survived a most violent attack of the yellow fever; a second who had had several of his bones fractured by falls, and in frays; and many who had been frequently affected by intermittents. I met with one man of 86, who had all his life been subject to syncope; another who had for 50 years been occasionally affected by a cough[68]; and two instances of men who had been afflicted for forty years with obstinate head-achs[69]. I met with only one person beyond 80, who had ever been affected by a disease in the _stomach_; and in him it arose from an occasional rupture. Mr. John Strangeways Hutton, of this city, who died in 1793, in the 109th year of his age, informed me, that he had never puked in his life. This circumstance is the more remarkable, as he passed several years at sea when a young man[70]. These facts may serve to extend our ideas of the importance of a healthy state of the stomach in the animal economy; and thereby to add to our knowledge in the prognosis of diseases, and in the chances of human life. [68] This man's only remedy for his cough was the fine powder of dry Indian turnip and honey. [69] Dr. Thiery says, that he did not find the itch, or slight degrees of the leprosy, to prevent longevity. Observations de Physique, et de Medecine faites en differens lieux de L'Espagne. Vol II. p. 17 i. [70] The venerable old man, whose history first suggested this remark, was born in New-York in the year 1684. His grandfather lived to be 101, but was unable to walk for thirty years before he died, from an excessive quantity of fat. His mother died at 91. His constant drinks were water, beer, and cyder. He had a fixed dislike to spirits of all kinds. His appetite was good, and he ate plentifully during the last years of his life. He seldom drank any thing between his meals. He was never intoxicated but twice in his life, and that was when a boy, and at sea, where he remembers perfectly well to have celebrated, by a feu de joye, the birth-day of queen Anne. He was formerly afflicted with the head-ach and giddiness, but never had a fever, except from the small-pox, in the course of his life. His pulse was slow, but regular. He had been twice married. By his first wife he had eight, and by his second seventeen children. One of them lived to be 83 years of age. He was about five feet nine inches in height, of a slender make, and carried an erect head to the last year of his life.