THE OLDEST MAN ?

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 153, 30 June 1934, Page 9

THE OLDEST MAN ?

DEATH OF ZARO AGHA.' Americans' Offer High Prices For Turk's Body. "YOUNGEST CHILD" OBJECTS. [United I'.A.-Elcetric Telegraph-Copyright) (Received 12 noon.) CONSTANTINOPLE, June 29. The death has occurred of Zaro Agha, who was convinced that lie was 100 years of age. lie commenced to ail when a recent medical report involved an X-ray of his bones after an examination for an interna}, complaint. The first relative to visit Agha's body was his Co-year-old youngest daughter. When she was asked to consent to a poat-iuorteni examination in the interests of science she demanded the body for a Moslem burial. The authorities then telegraphed to the Government, seeking; permission to hand the body over to doctors. Meanwhile, several cables from America offered high prices for the body. Although Agha claimed to be 100, doctors estimate that ho was from 140 to 14.~> years of ape. Agha has said he was married 14 times and he remembered at least 3(5 children. Agha's birth certificate asserts that he was born in Turkish Kurdostan in 1774. lie nourished this certificate in front of unbelievers with the same scorn as he displayed when he declared he never felt younger when Professor Voronoff recently offered to rejuvenate

Zaro Agha claimed to be the world's oideet man, and to have seen Napoleon 1. He was married to 14 wives. A son died in 1900 at the age of 101. Agha'a father lived to be 112. He married the lust of his wives when he was 152. Agha had a eertitieate vouched for by the Turkish Government, which had investigated the records, to prove that he first saw the light in 1774. At the age of 156 this man, over six feet in height, was still upright, and needed no spectacles, but he was slightly deaf and had no teeth.

In June, 1030, Agha set out on a world tour, during which he spent eome time in the United States. A committee of medical men who examined him told him in 1030 that there was no reason why he should not live for another 25 yearn. Ho never ate meat, and neither smoked nor drank alcohol,- but lie attributed his longevity os much to hie love of long walks as to his strict dietary and abstinence from intoxicants and tobacco. Agha fought in sis warn—four against the Russians — and was pix times wounded. When he was 100 he volunteered and fought at the battle of Plevna. But his most notable link with the past was his memory of the great Napoleon.

When ho was 24 he was lighting against the French in Syria. He helped to defend the fortress of Acre, and there ho saw a general in a green cloak on a white horse. Afterwards he learned that this man was the Emperor. When Agha visited London in April, 1931, he was informed that he had a rival, a Chinese super-patriarrh, who claimed to be 2.V2 years old. Agha was very sceptical about this "assertion. "Surely,' , he said, '"it this were true doctors would have been visiting him from everywhere, ;is they did me Inng before I started on my travels." During his visit to America in 1030 he Mas knocked down by a motor car while crossing Broadway at 01st Street. He was seriously injured.