LAND OF METHUSELAHS

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5305, 27 July 1928, Page 1

LAND OF METHUSELAHS

BULGARIA’S RECORD. CENTENARIANS NUMBER 3130. After- an exhaustive investigation, of the world’s longevity statistics Di» Kyril Popoy, State; Director of Statistical Research in Bulgaria, has drawn up a report indicating that more Bulgarians livte to a, great age than any other people in the world. In their small kingdom, of considerably fewer inhabitants than London’, there are n,o fewer than 313? persons who claim to be centenarians, and who can produce some evidence to that effect. Freedom from worry and placidty of disposition were found to be the mpgic talismans that keep them alive

s.q long. ■ There are very few physicians in Bulgaria outside; th© infrequent towns, and strong constitutions, rather than medical aid, conduce to survival 'to a ripe old age. The doctors sept, round by the Government to investigate the circumstances of these; venerable persons found that only 14 of them bad ever received medical treatment. The great majority of the Bulgarian centenarians were found to be simple iWal peasants who had never

earned more than the equivalent of a pound or two a we.ek, and mor® than three-quarters of them cannot read or write, though most of them can play a simple stringed instrument. Vegetables, Inuit, milk, che-esp, and bread constitute most of their, food and drink., 'Hardly any tinned ■or bottled foods are consumed by them. Most of them did not mari'T until after, the age of 30, and haVft several children. The Bulgarian investigation of centenarians .was much more thorough than the sporadic reseaii'ch whifih has been undertaken alopn these lines; in other Balkan countries. .Turkey, however, has been found to contain laTnenumbers of including that remarkable couple, Zapo Aga, of Constantinople, a man of huge statute, who is claimed to, be 145 and to have outlived nine wives; apd Fatma Hanem, of Angola, who is 160. Fatma, it may be noted, was born in Bulgaria, apd her. eldest daughteii died at the age of 90. A woman named

Rukkie, who died in 'Adana last summer, was declared to be 122. Zano was bo«’n in 1808, a noiircommissioned officer of the bodyguard of the Sultan Selim HI.

Spain, the Bulgarian investigator ascertained, is the Balkans’ closest competitor iq 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, 35 centenarians, 24 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, Marna Ustav, of CiipcaUa, in the Dobuudja, who died last .winter, was 135 and had never been treated by a doctor. Malo Frantsitch, “The Methuselah of Yugo-Slavia,” who also die.di last winter, in the Bosnian village of Zuhitch, was 126.. He a heavy smoker, never refused a drink, manfiied three times, and w.as 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 Schoo,nwyk, a South African negness, died' aged 117 at Bloemfontenn last Jun.e 4 and the - last Egyptian census showed more than 200 centenarians.

Ireland claims very many centenarians, William Smyth. 125, Mrs Mary Brickland 115, .and the Hon. Mfejs Katherine Plunket, 107.