Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 May 1890 — “HORICUS.” THE FATAL 68. [ARTICLE]

“HORICUS.” THE FATAL 68.

A Notion that th« Climacteric Inr la s Duftrou Period. Certain years in the life of man have been from great antiquity supposed to have a peculiar importance, and to be liable to singular vicissitudes in his health and fortunes. Where or how this belief originated is unknown, says the St. Louis Republic, but it is supposed to have been founded on the teachings of Pythagoras. The well known notice of the climacteric year —63—supposed to be particularly dangerous to men of that age, in a letter to Augustus Caesar, evinces its prevalence among the Romans. Some astrological writers have called the sixty-third year man’s “horicus,” because of a mythical notion that it was or is fatal to great men. The sole cause of its blighting influence is supposed to revert to the fact that it is a multiple of the 7 and 9, both of which are mystical numbers. It is a remarkable fact that all nations attach particular importance to 7 or any multiple of that figure. Thus, at 14, twice seven, the male and the female are supposed to have arrived at puberty; at 21, three sevens, the male becomes “of age,” while many writers, Aristotle in particular, fix 85, five sevens, as the height of bodily vigor, and 40 as the year of maximum mental activity. At the age of 63, when a man is 9 times 7 years of age, the most trivial diseases are likely to cause the death of the most robust old man, while the ten 7’s (70) has been ascribed as the limit of his earthly career.