The hands of a king is the hands of a healer???

[doug*platypus]

Elrond is definitely not the oldest of them, but Numenorians.

Excellent point, he is certainly not the oldest of the elves. Possibly Glorfindel is older, so Elrond may not even hold these bragging rights in his own house! But you seem to miss the fact that he was not a Númenórean. Old or young, he simply never was one. If he was, he would be nothing but bones by the time of the War of the Ring.

I think that the word "race" might have been a little hasty for JRRT to use, or that possibly we are reading it too literally. I have always taken it to mean something like "kind", as in he is the eldest of our kind, our profession, healers. I don't think that there is an older healer in Middle-Earth, and these seem to be skills possessed only by a few. No mention is made in Lothlorien of Galadriel having healing powers, although ample opportunity is given since Frodo and Sam were both hurt in Moria.