A MAN ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY YEARS OLD.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 3, Issue 225, 13 September 1878, Page 3

A MAN ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY YEARS OLD.

At a recent meeting of physicians at Bogota, in New Granada, an interesting account was given by Dr Luis Hernandez of a visit which he had paid t to.a half-caste fanner, named Miguel Solis, living in the Foot Hills of the Sierra Mesilla, who confessed to being. 180 years old, but is believed by his neighbors to be really much older, Dr Hernandez was informed by some of the oldest inhabitants of the district that they well remembered Miguel as a. reputed centenarian when they were boys ; also, that the name of Miguel Solis, colored farmer, appears in a writ, still preserved, of the contributors to the building fund of a Franciscan monastery near San Sebastian, which was founded in 1712, and that the present Abbot is positive it is the same man. Dr Hernandez, when he visited Miguel, found him at work in his orchard ; his skin was the color of parchment, but he was robust and active ; his snow-white hair was twisted turban fashion round his head, and his eyes were so bright that the doctor felt quite uncomfortable when they were turned upon him. In answer to questions as to his habits, Miguel said that the secret of his living a century or two was very simple—simply never getting drunk, and never overfeeding. " I eat only once a day a big hearty meal, which it often takes me half an hour to get through with ; but," he added, " you see it is not impossible in half an hour to eat mere than you can digest in the next twenty-four." He went on to say that he had not made up his mind about meat, but he did hot eat much of it. He fasted on the first and middle days of each month, eating 1 nothing, but drinking all the water he could swallow. , He always let cooked food cool before lasting it; and to this precaution he attributed the;fact his teeth were as sound now as they were 180 years ago.