FW: fourscore...

[George Thompson]

Once upon a time I did a good deal of reading in genealogies, with reference to my mother's family, who were a bunch of old-time yankees.  I was struck at how many of the people listed from the 17th & 18th Cs lived to be 70, 80, or beyond, if they didn't die in infancy or early adulthood.

I myself would have died in my mid 20s, if it weren't for penicilin, since my appendix ruptured at that age.  There is also a question of the quality of a long life.  I had a brain concussion at about 19, producing a subdural hematoma.  This was treated successfuly though somewhat inadvertently by trephining, a technique know in Central America, but wouldn't have been known in colonial New England.  If my concussion had had to go untreated, I would have lead a rather impaired life until the appendix finished me off.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998.