LAND OF METHUSELAHS

Evening Star, Issue 19924, 21 July 1928, Page 10

LAND OF METHUSELAHS

BULGARIA'S 3,139 CENTEGARIAfiS After an exhaustive investigation of tho world's longevity statistics, Dr Kyril i'opoy, State Director of Statistical Research in Bulgaria, has drawn up a report indicating that more Bulgarians live to a great ag© than any other people in the world. In their small kingdom, of considerably lower inhabitants than London, there are no fewer than 3,139 persons who claim to bo centenarians, and who can produce some evidence to that cftect. Freedom from worry and placidity of disposition were found to bo the magic talismans that keep them alive so Jong. There are very few physicians in Bulgaria outside the infrequent towns, and strong constitutions, rather than medical aid, conduce to survival to a ripe old age. Tho doctors sent round by the Government to mvesLigate mo cucumstanccs of these venerable persons found that only fourteen of them had ever received medical treatment. The great majority of tho Bulgarian centenarians were found to be simple rural peasants who had never earned more than the equivalent of a pound or two a week, and more than threequarters of them cannot read or wiite, though most of tliem can play a simple stringed musical instrument. Vegetables, fruit, milk, cheese, and bread constitute most of their food and drink. Hardly any tinned or bottled foods are consumed by them. Most of them did not marry until after the ago of thirty, and have several children. TURKEY’S PATRIARCHS. Tho Bulgarian investigation of centenarians was much more thorough than the sporadic research which has been undertaken along.these lines in other Balkan countries. Turkey, however, has been found to contain large numbers of centenarians, including that remarkable couple, Zaro Aga, of Constantinople, a man of huge stature, who is claimed to be 145 and outlived nine wives; and Fatma Hanem, of Angora, who is 160. Fatma, it may be noted, was born in Bulgaria, and her oldest daughter died at the age of ninety. A woman named Rukkio, who died in Adana last summer, was declared to be 122. Zaro was born in Kurdistan, and became, in 1808, a non-commissioncd officer in the bodyguard of the Sultan Selim 111. Spain, the Bulgarian investigator ascertained, is tho Balkan’s closest competitor in respect of centenarians for, according to statistics available a few months ago, there were 355, 258 of whom were women. Madrid itself, notoriously dusty in summer and swept by bitterly cold winds in winter, was found to contain, at the time of the last census, thirty-five centenarians, twenty-four of them being women. Italy’s last census figures showed 146 centenarians, including a woman of 120, living in Ancona, and a man of 119 in a village of Liguria. Rumanian centenarians are very numerous; one of them, Maria Ustay, of Carcalia, in the Dobrudja, who died last winter, was 135, and had never been treated by a doctor. Eighty-two of her descendants attended the funeral. MOUNTAINEERING AT 126.

Main Frantsitch, “ the Methuselah of Yugo-slavia,” who also died last winter. in the Bosnian village of«Znbitch, was 126. He was a heavy_ smoker, never refused a drink, married three times, and was a big, strong fellow, known to everyone in Bosnia. He finally overtaxed his strength by .a long day’s clambering about a mountainside in search of a lost goat. Susan Schoonwyk. South African negress, died aged ll? at Bloemfontein last June, and the last Egyptian census showed more than 200 centenarians.

Ireland claims very many centenarians. William Smyth, who lied in Dromara last winter, claimed to be 125, and Mrs Mary Brickland is said to be 115, and to nave worked at the rectory at Goashill ninety-seven u-ars ago. Tho Hon. Miss Katherine P!unkett, of Ballymacanlon, was 107 last November.

It was stated in Parliament last spring that 439 centenarians have died in England and Wales during the past five years.