CORNA'RO, LUIGI, a Venetian nobleman, celebrated for the successful care he took of his health, by means of diet, was born about 146S. He was originally of a weak constitution, and by the time he had attained mature 'nunhood his intemperate indulgence in eating, drinking, and other pleasures, had brought on so many disorders that life was a burden to him. He informs us, that from his thirty-fifth year to his fortieth, he spent his uldlts and days in almost unremitted suffering. Having tried all their other remedies in vain, his physicians earnestly recommended a more temperate course of life, and when he was forty he began gradually to diminish the quantity of his food, and to eat and drink nothing but what nature required. At first he found this severe regimen very disagreeable, and he confesses that he did occasionally relapse to "the flesh-pots of Egypt." But as each of these relapses brought back his old symptoms, be soon exerted all his resolution, and by a spare and simple diet became a hale man within a year. From temperance he proceeded to abstemiousness, until at last the yolk of an egg was often considered sufficient for a meal. His health and spirits kept improving all the while, and as for enjoy ment in eating, he says he brought himself to relish dry bread much more than he had ever done the most exquisite dainties of the table. At the same time he carefully avoided heat and cold, over-fatigue, late hours, sexual excesses, and all violent passions of the mind, having fully ascertained that nothing is more destructive of health and longevity than an indulgence in ambition, envy, hatred, and the like.
Melancholy was to be equally avoided, but from this depressing pas sion his light food and peaceful slumbers kept him wholly free. He recommended, by practice, exercise, riding on horseback, the sports of the field, and those gentle excitements derivable from fine scenery in the country, the contemplation of architectural and other works of art in towns and cities, and the hearing and playing of music.
He records of himself, that when he was a very old man he used often to sing with his grandchildren, and that too with a voice louder and clearer than when he was a young man. When he was seventy years old be suffered a dreadful accident, by which hid head and body were battered, and a leg and arm dislocated. Considering his advanced
age, the physicians thought these injuries must speedily prove fatal, but after his limbs had been set, he recovered under the slightest medical treatment, and without experiencing any fever. Hence he inferred that a life of strict temperance is a safeguard against the ill effects that generally follow such accidents. When he was about seventy-eight, the quantity of nourishment he took in the twenty-four hours was, of bread, light meat, yolk of egg, and soup, twelve ounces in all ; of wine, fourteen ounces ; and these were portioned out into four separate meals. By the advice of his medical friends he theu added two ounces to his solid food, and two ounces to his wine ; but this trifling increase was soon given over, as it destroyed his ease and vivacity, and made him peevish and melancholy. In his eighty-third year he wrote his treatise 'Of the Advantages of a Temperate Life,' He subsequently added three other discourses on the same subject, the fourth and last being included in a letter to Barbaro, the patriarch of Aquileia, to whom he states, that at the age of ninety-five, he Is still in possession of health, vigour, and the perfect use of all his faculties.
Cornaro died at Padua in 1566, when, according to the best authori ies, he was ninety-eight years old. His work was very frequently rublished in Italy, both in the vernacular tongue and in Latin. It ras been translated into all the civilised languages of Europe, and was nee a most popular book. There are several English translations of t, the best being one which bears the date of 1779. Cornaro'e system as had many followers. The best authenticated ease we know of its 3eiag rigorously and successfully pursued iu England is that of Thomas Wood, a miller of Billericay in Essex, to whom a neighbouring .11ergyman lent the 'Life of Cornaro.' (' Medical Transactions of the College of Physicians.') The old Venetian does not insist on such ,rxtreme abstinence as he practised—both the quality and the quantity 3f food, he says, ought to depend on the constitution; but he is pro bably right in hinting that men of all constitutions shorten their lives and weaken their enjoyments by over-eating and drinking.