Prolong, farewell: The gruesome history of our efforts to live ‘forever’

From blood transfusions and gold to sex-organ transplants and an ancient vegetarian diet, see how the search for elixirs has played out over time.

It is considered the disease of civilisation. Why die when you can live?

Through history, humans have taken strange measures in attempts to postpone the end. They have invented elixirs, sipped on molten gold, drunk the blood of younger people.

When this was found not to work — when no amount of soothsaying, sacrificing or studying of omens could keep even the most powerful kings from dying — the ancients shifted focus to the hereafter. Pyramids were built and furnished;