The experience of Luigi (Louis) Cornaro in respect to longevity and its relation to diet and temperance is one of the most interesting and instructive that has ever been recorded.

He was a Venetian gentleman of a noble family, and some authorities say he was born in 1463. Other writers fix the date of his birth three or four years later, but this slight difference of opinion as to when he came into the world is of no consequence since the fact is not disputed that he became a distinguished centenarian.

In his young manhood Cornaro started out on a life of riotous living, which continued until he was nearly forty years old. He became so wasted by dissipation of many kinds that his life was despaired of. When he realized that intemperance and sensuality were rushing him to a premature death, he resolved to reform his habits. He adopted strict rules of frugality in eating and drinking and frequent but gentle exercise. By this means he prolonged a cheerful, happy age covering over one hundred years, his death occurring at Padua, Italy, in 1566.

When Cornaro was eighty-five he wrote his celebrated treatise, The Certain Method of Obtaining a Long and Healthful Life, in which he held that with increasing age and diminishing powers, a corresponding decrease in the quantity of food must be taken in order to preserve health. This little volume passed through thirty different English editions, and has been translated into many European languages. I will quote three paragraphs from the book to illustrate Cornaro's quaint way of setting forth his case:

"There are old lovers of feeding who say that it is necessary that they should eat and drink a great deal to keep up their natural heat, which is constantly diminishing as they advance in years; and that it is, therefore, their duty to eat heartily, and of such things as please their palate, be they hot, cold, or temperate; and that, were they to lead a sober life, it would be a short one. To this I answer that our kind Mother Nature, in order that old men may live still to a greater age, has contrived matters as that they should be able to subsist on little, as I do, for large quantities of food cannot be digested by old and feeble stomachs. By always eating little, the stomach, not being much burdened, need not wait long to have an appetite. It is for this reason that dry bread relishes so well with me; and I know from experience, and can with truth affirm, I find such sweetness in it that I should be afraid of sinning against temperance, were it not for my being convinced of the absolute necessity of eating it, and that we cannot make use of a more natural food. And thou, kind parent Nature, who actest so lovingly by thy aged offspring, in order to prolong his days, hast contrived matters so in his favor, that he can live upon very little; and, in order to add to the favor, and to do him still greater service, hast made him sensible, that, as in his youth he used to eat twice a day, when he arrives at old age he ought to divide that food of which he was accustomed before to make but two meals, into four; because thus divided, it will be more easily digested; and, as in his youth he made but two collations in a day, he should, in his old age, make four, provided, however, he lessens the quantity as his years increase.

"And this is what I do, agreeably to my own experience; and, therefore, my spirits, not oppressed by much food, but barely kept up, are always brisk, especially after eating, so that I am obliged then to sing a song, and afterwards to write.

"Nor do I ever find myself the worse for writing immediately after meals, nor is my understanding ever clearer, nor am I apt to be drowsy, the food I take being in too small a quantity to send up any fumes to the brain. Oh, how advantageous it is to an old man to eat but little! Accordingly I, who know it, eat but just enough to keep body and soul together. I eat only twelve ounces of solid food per day, consisting chiefly of bread, broth, and eggs, mutton, perhaps chicken or pigeon; some kinds of fish, such as pike, all of which are proper for old men."

At the age of ninety-one and ninety-five, Cornaro put forth two other books on the subject, each glowing with the same cheerfulness and enthusiasm which were characteristic of the first.

How much Cornaro's abstemious habits must have had to do with his remarkable vitality may be inferred from the fact that having, when seventy years old, met with a terrible accident by which his head and body were terribly battered and a leg and arm dislocated, he recovered - although physicians had pronounced his injuries fatal - almost without medical treatment and without feverish symptoms.

The case of Cornaro is full of common sense, instruction, and encouragement; and it goes without telling that many have been immensely benefitted by adopting, in a fair measure, his wise regimen and abstemious habits.

Richard A. Proctor gives an interesting account of Thomas Wood, who became known as "the abstemious miller." By unnatural living he had grown excessively corpulent and was suffering from a number of ailments, including violent rheumatism and gout. When he read Cornaro's little treatise on "A Sure Way of Prolonging Life," he adopted the rules therein prescribed, and soon found his health well established, his spirits lively, his sleep no longer disturbed by frightful dreams, and his strength of muscles so far improved that he could carry two hundred and fifty pounds at the age of fifty, whereas at thirty he had not been able to lift much. What added greatly to his comfort as well as to his health, was the loss of about one hundred and fifty pounds of flesh.

A countless number of scientific experiments and individual experiences make it certain that persons who are fifty or beyond, and of delicate structure, can enjoy good health on a simple, well-balanced diet. Leo XIII. was about as frugal as Cornaro, and lived a little over ninety-three years, and almost to the very last he did a great deal of hard mental work.

Of late years Mr. Horace Fletcher, who is a modem Cornaro as to diet, has written much on nutrition and sociology, and his experiments at the laboratories of various Universities in this and other countries concerning dietary matters are important. He advocates small rations for everybody, and grows strong on his own medicine. After a thorough scientific research relative to human nutrition, Mr. Fletcher greatly reduced the quantity of his daily food with remarkably beneficial results.

He is now fifty-four years of age, and not long ago he made seven hundred and fifty miles in ten days on a bicycle through Germany and France. It required the expenditure of considerable energy to cover seventy-five miles each day, but he made the trip successfully on a diet consisting of rolls, milk, cream, potatoes, and beans.

To further test the practicability of his nutrition scheme, Mr. Fletcher climbed the Washington monument - eight hundred and fifty-four steps - and ran down the entire distance without stopping or being fatigued.

It should be added that Mr. Fletcher did not inherit a robust constitution.