"Hermippus Redivivus"
"By means of this discovery, life may be easily prolonged over a hundred years, for this vapour of breath collected from maidens in trumpets, when distilled, becomes an elixir of life, and by the copious use of this concentrated vitality steamed down to an essence, man becomes interpenetrated with living energy capable of resisting disease and repelling the inroads of age."
If we consider that the substances we absorb into our bodies become part of ourselves, and that our systems are undergoing a perpetual assimilation of the particles taken into us and renovation thereby, so that every seven years we have totally changed our substance, it is evident that, in the words of a learned friend of Doctor Cohausen, "This entire Hermippus, since he lived over one hundred years, must have been completely composed of the transmutated breath and porous exhalations of little girls; so that his career must have closed by evaporation."
It is certain that men can live a long time on what they inspire, without eating; for the famous laughing philosopher Democritus, who lived to a hundred and nine, when near his death observed that his sister was depressed, and on inquiring the cause, ascertained that she had anticipated great pleasure by attending an approaching festival of Ceres, but that she feared his death would render it an infringement of etiquette for her to be present at the public festivities. Democritus consoled her by promising
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