Abstract

The present article deals with the notions of the influence of food products on human life expectancy, widespread at the end of the 18th - first quarter of the 20th century, as well as the concepts of longevity adopted during this period. The article considers food products that contribute to an increase in life expectancy when they are used correctly in accordance with the age, physique, temperament and sex of a person. The aim of this article is to provide a general overview of scientific and medical ideas about achieving longevity at the interface of dietetics, philosophy and history of medicine. Their rethinking seems to be very relevant given the renewal of longevity promoting practices in modern society, the revisiting of the hypotheses and theories about the “secret of long-livers”, etc. Currently, there are studies looking at medical concepts and specific recipes from the past in order to find new approaches to the development of modern medicine. Thus, a number of innovations in modern science and medicine (for example: the rejuvenating effect of blood, shunamitism, correlating the age of mothers with their children’s prospects for a long life, “magnetic mattresses to increase life span”, etc.) have already been described by experts in the field of longevity research in the 18th - 19th centuries. The study of such concepts and introducing into scientific discourse information about various relevant kinds of studies and inventions of bygone era will strengthen the scientific base of the issue. The present study is based on materials from medical and popular science literature of the late 18th - first quarter of the 20th century. Attention is focused on products that are widely used in current everyday life, and which were believed to have a geroprotective effect, as well as rejuvenate and heal the human body. These are such products as coffee, tea, sugar, chocolate, cinnamon, etc. The study results in identifying general ideas of the secret of longevity, based on the animistic concept, which was supported by representatives of scientific medicine, philosophical and religious healing as well as magical and mystical healing traditions in Russia at the turn of the 19th -20th centuries.