Day 1,368: arsenic, charlatan

For centuries the attempt to stop ageing was the preserve of charlatans touting the benefits of mercury and arsenic, or assortments of herbs and pills, often to disastrous effect.

Living to 120 is becoming an imaginable prospect

Artwork of the day 
The Charlatan
Pietro Longhi
Date: 1757
Style: Rococo
Genre: genre painting
Media: oil, canvas
Location: Ca' Rezzonico (Museo del Settecento), Venice, Italy
Dimensions: 62 x 50 cm

Word of the day 
charlatan: a person who pretends to have skills or knowledge that they do not have, especially in medicine
arsenic: a chemical element that is very poisonous, often used to kill

Quote of the day
“We can't possibly have a summer love. So many people have tried that the name's become proverbial. Summer is only the unfulfilled promise of spring, a charlatan in place of the warm balmy nights I dream of in April. It's a sad season of life without growth...It has no day.”

― F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise