From the inevitable exposure to infection and worry the medical fraternity is generally considered to rank low in the professions as regards longevity, but it is easy to point to exceptions especially among those whose mental vigour made them prominent in their own and in one instance for all time. Hippocrates is variously stated to have died at the ages of 85, 90, 104, or 106 years with the words “I leave behind me two great physicians, temperance and frugality.”[71] I have references to 43 medical centenarians for 18 of which, including the record of W. G. Meade, physician at Tunbridge Wells and buried at Ware, Herts, in November 1652, aged 148¾ years, I am indebted to my friend Mr. R. R. James. The only one that I knew personally was Sir Henry Pitman, for 31 years (1858–89) and until his 82nd year Registrar of the Royal College of Physicians of London. Among the others Dr. de Bossy of Paris may be mentioned as the son of a centenarian. From analysis of 2113 eminent medical men Drinkwater[72] found that the average age was 67 years, or considerably above the average age of the male population over 21 years, which was estimated at 59 years, and that 627 or nearly a third of them all were between 71 and 80 years of age. But the examples given of mental activity late in life, and they could easily be multiplied,[73] are exceptions to the rule that the majority of men begin to fail in their work between 60 and 70. This no doubt is because most septuagenarians suffer in greater or less degree from pathological old age. In the case of the healthy vigorous man enforced retirement at the age of 65 or 70 is not to the advantage of either the retiring victim or the community, for it restricts his opportunities for production and useful activities guided by ripe experience. To quote examples of epoch-making work done by men long past the age when the majority have lost originality, initiative, and elasticity of mind: Galileo, Newton, Charles Darwin, Sophocles, Voltaire, Molière, Goethe, Michael Angelo, and Titian, made original and lasting contributions to science, literature, and art long after fifty. Morgagni’s famous _De Sedibus et Causis Morborum_, brought out when he was 80, and the Commentaries of W. Heberden (aged 91), published posthumously, represent the accumulation of many years and so cannot be fairly quoted as examples of ability persisting into late life. Rules and regulations must, however, be based on what is best for the majority and hence, though the exceptions are prominent and regrettable, the age limit of 65 to 70 must at present be accepted as generally advisable for otherwise permanent appointments.