KINGSTON, Jamaica--Researchers at the University of the West Indies (UWI) will soon be able to probe the secret to longevity from Jamaica’s late oldest citizen.
The body of late supercentenarian Violet Moss Brown has been donated to the UWI for scientific research. Family members say it was the wish of the 117-year-old woman, who held the record as the oldest living person up until she died on September 15.
Her granddaughter Beverly Davis Fray said Moss Brown’s body will be in the Department of Anatomy and Physiology, “so medical students will be able to basically look at her body, do experiments; see, for instance, why was a 117-year-old woman so clear in her mind.”
“I am sure that they will find information that will benefit not only Jamaica, but the entire world. This was a very rare occurrence and it was not something that happened by chance,” Davis Fray said.
Moss Brown’s son Sylvera Barrington Russell said that turning over his mother’s body to the university was in fulfilment of her request.
“This was one of her wishes. We sat and we talked and one of her wishes was she don’t want to see something go down into the ground which will not have no use to anybody. Her soul is gone to heaven, that’s what she said, and if we can find some cure from what is left of it, that is what she would like. So she was up to it 100 per cent,” Russell said.
The body of Moss Brown, who was affectionately known as “Aunt V,” will be turned over to the UWI next Monday, October 9, a day after a thanksgiving service at Trittonville Baptist Church in her community. ~ Caribbean360 ~
