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Article: Who wants to live for ever?(Christmas Specials)(Average life expectancy has risen greatly. The span of individual life has not. Would it be a good thing if it did? No)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- December 23, 2000
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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ARE you hoping for a long life? Thought so. Are you looking forward to growing old? Thought not. Man has wanted one without the other for thousands of years, and has invariably been disappointed. Cleopatra is said to have bathed in asses' milk to stay young and beautiful, but did not live long enough to find out if it worked in old age. The Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon was more famous for his search for the Fountain of Youth than for discovering Florida in 1513. He never did find the rejuvenating spring that the natives had told him of, and died from a poisoned Indian arrow a few years later.
The legend of the Fountain of Youth may have originated in ...