In 1635 King Charles I’s royal doctor William Harvey was ordered to carry out an autopsy on the late Thomas Parr. Conducted on the 16 November, just two days after Parr's death, the examination took place before an eager audience of physicians. In Harvey’s notes on the procedure, entitled Anatomia Thomae Parri, he wrote:

"Being open’d after his death his body was found yet very fleshy, his breast hairy, his genitals unimpaired… lung not fungous, but sticking to his ribs and distended with much blood… his heart was great, thick, fibrous and fat...his kidneys cover’d with fat, and pretty sound, only in the anterior surface of them there were found some aqueous or serous abscesses, whereof one was near the bigness of a hen egg" 

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The full article is available to read in issue 167 of the Historical Association's magazine.