Welcome to Running: A FEVER. My name is Michael Davis. This is a show about fitness, diet, and medicine. My goal is to live a long, healthy, happy, active life right up to the very end.
If you don’t already know, Jeanne Calment is the person who lived the longest, according to documented evidence. She lived to be 122.
Some of you may be intrigued by the title of this episode. Jeanne Calment died on August 4, 1997. What is there to update? As it turns out, quite a lot. My first episode on Jeanne was published on July 26, 2019. As I often do for the show, I recorded it on an early morning walk. So it wasn’t entirely about Jeanne, and it was 28 minutes long. Not long ago, I noticed that that episode was the most popular video on my YouTube channel, which you can find at http://YouTube.com/@RunningAFEVER.
So, let’s talk about the information I have discovered since episode 170, which you can find at http://RunningAFEVER.com/170. In 2019, an article was published by Inserm, the French equivalent of the National Institutes of Health here in the United States. In the article, among other things, the existence of 15 hours of recorded interviews with Jeanne Calment, recorded between 1992 and 1995, was mentioned.
The 25 recordings consisted of 30 interviews by Dr. Michel Allard of Fondation Ipsen, Jean-Marie Robine, a demographer and public health researcher, and Dr. Victor Lebre, Jeanne’s attending physician. Unfortunately, readers of the article would be kept in suspense for another three years. When the article was published, they wanted to ensure the tapes didn’t contain private or medical information. A 2020 article in the New Yorker said when asked about the recordings, Dr. Allard said, “the tapes were sitting in a box in his basement; he simply hadn’t bothered to fetch them.” He hadn’t bothered to fetch them. You probably can’t tell, but inside, I’m screaming right now.
In 2022, the tapes were finally published as digital audio on the Inserm website. You can go there today and
hunt them down. I have included a link to them in the blog post at http://RunningAFEVER.com/403. But wait! Don’t go there now, because I have a big announcement to make! Today, I am making all 25 recordings available on YouTube for the first time ever. You can access them in a single playlist on my channel, appropriately titled “The Jeanne Calment Interviews”. Now, keep in mind that these interviews are all in French. After all, Jeanne was from Arles, France. Her interviewers were presumably French as well. Which brings me to my next point.
I’ve looked into various methods of automated transcription and translation, and I even tested out a couple on a short interview segment. They are just not up to snuff, and I understand why. First of all, the interviews were recorded on tape, probably cassette tapes, and were 30 years old when they were digitized. Second, we’re talking about a 117-120-year-old woman whose speech is not always clear.
Now, I know some people who are fluent in both English and French are listening to this episode right now. So please consider working on transcribing and translating these recordings so that the English-speaking world, especially me, can learn exactly what this amazing woman had to say, telling the story of her life. If I can help in any way, through coordinating who does what, or if there is anything else I can do, please get in touch with me at mail@runningafever.com. I know I would appreciate it, and I think many, many more would as well.
But wait! There’s more! As if all that wasn’t enough to think about. In my research, I also discovered a book, written by the interviewers, Allard, Lebre, and Robine, and translated into English by Beth Coupland. It’s called “Jeanne Calment: From Van Gogh’s Time to Ours, 122 Extraordinary Years.” It chronicles Jeanne’s life as they discovered it in their study of her. Unfortunately, again, the book, at least the English version, is out of print and very rare. I found three copies of it for sale. I bought the cheapest one, which wasn’t cheap. So I suppose a lucky two of you can get it and read it for yourself.
But that doesn’t mean the rest of you will be left out. I will be doing a series of episodes inspired by the book. I look forward to it. I hope you’ll enjoy it.
Well, that’s it—no more startling announcements or amazing new information for this episode. But there’s more to come. Stay tuned. And if you’ve got the fever, keep it burning. And if you don’t, catch the fever, and I will see you next time on Running: A FEVER.
References:
https://gerontology.fandom.com/wiki/Jeanne_Calment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/02/17/was-jeanne-calment-the-oldest-person-who-ever-lived-or-a-fraud#:~:text=After%20the%20woman%20died%2C%20at,ever%20known%20to%20have%20lived.
https://www.ipubli.inserm.fr/discover?scope=%2F&query=jeanne+calment&submit=&filtertype_0=title&filter_relational_operator_0=contains&filter_0=
https://presse.inserm.fr/en/update-jeanne-calment-the-oldest-woman/59240/
https://calment.fandom.com/wiki/Audio_Transcripts