  |
|
 |
|
|
|
Why man COULD live for ever, by Desmond Morris DESMOND MORRIS Few years ago I held the hand that had served Vincent van Gogh with the paints he used to create his greatest masterpieces. I was at the 121st birthday party of Madame Jeanne Calment, officially the oldest person who has ever lived. When she was a teenager, she had worked in her father's shop in Arles in the south of France. Vincent came in to buy his paints, but she wasn't that keen to serve him, she said, because "he was ugly as sin, had a vile temper and smelled of booze".
Yet, as a dutiful daughter, she had taken his money and handed him the paints with which he would create Sunflowers and many of his other most famous works. I was attending her birthday because I wanted to understand how any human being could survive for such a long time. Her answer was that it was due to her calmness. "That's why they call me Calment," she chuckled, with a twinkle in her now almost sightless eyes. But there was much more to it than that. I discovered from her doctor that, amazingly, she had never had a day's illness in her entire life. What an immune system she must have had! It had protected her against every virus going. If only medical science could have extracted its essence and injected it into the rest of us. In addition to being genetically blessed with this extraordinary defence mechanism, she had also, by her nature, retained a cheerful outlook on life and an irrepressible sense of humour.
|
||||
