OLD WOMEN.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIII, Issue III, 21 July 1894, Page 70

OLD WOMEN.

It is an acknowledged fact that a great age is attained by women oftener than by men. One of the most famous female centurians was the Countess of Desmond, who lived to be one hundred and forty five years old, and died in the reign of James I. from the effects of an accident. This wonderful woman found herself, at the age of one hundred, to be able to take part in a dance, and when she was one hundred and forty she travelled all the way from Bristol to London—no trifling journey in those days—in order to attend personally to some business affairs. Lady Desmond is, however, quite thrown into the shade by a French woman —Marie Prion —who died in St. Colombe in June, it is said, at the wonderful age of one hundred and fifty. Toward the end of her life she lived exclusively on goat’s milk and cheese. Although her body was so shrunk that she weighed only forty six pounds, she retained all her mental faculties to the last. It is an extraordinary but incontestable fact that some women, at the age when most people die, undergo a sort of natural process of rejuvenation—hair and teeth grow again, the wrinkles disappear from the skin, and sight and hearing re acquire their former sharpness. A Marquise de Mirabeau is an example of this rare and remarkable phenomenon. She died at the age of eighty-six, but a few years before her death she became in appearance quite young again. The same change happened to a nun of the name of Marguerite Verdur, who, at the age of sixty-two, lost her wrinkles, regained her sight, and grew several new teeth. When she died, ten years later, her appearance was almost that of a young girl.