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Could old book hold the secret to a long life?

9/ 5/2008

DESPITE modern medicine's best efforts, the key to boosting your life expectancy could lie in a dusty old manual from the turn of the last century.

While clearing her mum's attic, Elizabeth Harfleet, of Gwendor Avenue, Crumpsall stumbled upon 'How To Live 100 Years' among her dad's possessions.

The small volume of tips and treatments had belonged to her great aunt Lillie, who lived to the age of 103.

"Obviously, whatever she used worked for her," said Elizabeth, 46, who unwittingly followed in her aunt's healthy footsteps by training to be a nutritional therapist. Now she finds herself suggesting similar kinds of herbal treatments to those that Lillie followed many years ago.

"The book was probably published between 1890 and 1910, and some of the remedies are still legitimate," she said.

"For example, it suggests using chamomile flowers or making a tea from Irish and Icelandic moss if you've got a dodgy tummy, all of which can have very calming effects."

However, the book's recommendations for curing cholera didn't get Elizabeth's seal of approval.

"It says to place the patient in hot water and mustard up to the knees, and to give them a tea spoon of cholera powder and tablets," she said. "After the patient has been in for ten minutes, put a hot brick or bottle by his feet. Grim stuff really.

"It doesn't say any one should see the doctor, so maybe we depend on our GPs too much nowadays.Still, I think you should get some things checked out. Don't try and treat cholera at home is my advice."

Elizabeth doesn't know much about her aunt's life, other than she was born in 1870 to a rather well-off farming family and survived breast cancer to live past a century.

But whether or not the book was responsible for Lillie (born Mary Elizabeth Hogg) living so long, she still feels it deserves to be re-published.

"It's more a taste of medical history than all the cures people have been looking for," said Elizabeth. "It reflects the attitude of people at the time. It's very un-PC. It puts women down and puts men up on a pedestal and even has categories where it suggests rememedies specifically for labourers, then remedies for 'people who use their brains'.

"I'm talking with a publisher at the moment and we're hopefully going to reprint it as it is, I don't want to change a word. The archaic language is very quaint.

"My aunt would be thrilled!"

If people would like to know more about the book and find out when it's published, contact Elizabeth on 740 5917 or email elizabeth@wellbeing-nutrition.com.