Old Age

It took the prestige and initiative of the New York Academy of Medicine to hold, lasting the past fortnight, the country's first thorough conference on the medical problems of old age. Several hundred doctors, from all parts of the U. S., were attending.

Medicine knows no full picture of senescence. It knows many details--what diseases are peculiar to the age, how young ailments cause old crotchets, how various body parts wear out, how the mind grows dull. Little more detail did the New York conference bring out. Of a score papers only three or four dealt with the hygiene of old age. Practically all the others dealt with specific diseases. Yet the meeting was useful in collecting scattered knowledge and in focusing medical attention on old age.

Life Span. In 1840 a person aged 50 might have expected to live to be 70. In spite of decreased infant mortality, public hygiene and medical skill, a person now 50 can expect to live only until he is 71. (Louis Israel Dublin, Metropolitan Life Insurance statistician.)

Actuaries consider 65 the beginning of chronological old age. The U. S. has about 5,500,000 people above 65. Some 1,680,000 are at least 75; 240,000 at least 85; 60,000 at least 90. In 1,920 the U. S. had 4,267 centenarians.

It used to be taken for granted that the children of parents who lived 80 years had a better chance of living longer. Recent experiments have shown that is not true. Such children seldom average more than 52 years of age. (Linsly Rudd Williams, president of the New York Tuberculosis & Health Association.)

A horse is mature at five years and lives five times that stretch, to 25 years. A man is mature at 18 and should live five times as long, until 90. All men might succeed in doing that if they lived hygienically and wore light clothing. (Gerald B. Webb of Colorado Springs, Colo.)

The maximum possible age at present seems to be about 107 years.

Physiological Age is quite different from chronological age. The beginning of physical aging is failure of the body to recuperate after pronounced physical strain. If repeated spells of recuperation are needed before recovery from such a strain -- that is not old age, but it is the shadow. Physical old age may frequently be seen in individuals of 30 or 40. Before 40 nearly all men and women have begun to feel the signs. Mental old age is a more subtle matter. It comes later than physical old age and the deterioration is slower. (Charles F. Collins, for 35 years head of a New York old people's home.)

Alexis Carrel of the Rockefeller Institute, has a way of calculating physiological age. He takes blood serum and centrifuges it until the serum is free of cells. In the serum he cultures pure tissue or tissue cells, generally fibroblasts. Simultaneously he cultures the same sort of tissue in a saline solution. The older a person is (physically) the slower will his tissues grow in his serum. The ratio of tissue growth in serum to tissue growth in salt solution is Dr. Carrel's "growth index."

Rejuvenation. A specific use for Dr. Carrel's growth index is to measure the effect (if any) of artificial rejuvenation. Said he: "We should admit that no great imagination has been used so far in the development of those [rejuvenation] treatments. t is assumed that by grafting glands rejuvenation can take place. But it is very interesting to observe that neither [Eugene] Steinach* or [Serge] Voronoff or any of the men who have been interested in rejuvenation have attempted to verify whether or not their method of treatment has brought about a real result. After all, what should be done if an operation is performed on a man 60 years old is to ascertain if, for instance, he has been brought back to 58 or 55 or 50. Now, no attempt has been made in that direction and nevertheless it is the only way by which we can knew if any method of treatment has been successful or not. ... In a biological or medical study of old age, it is absolutely necessary to know what is the real age involved if we are to deal with diseases in old individuals.

"The number of years during which a man has lived has nothing to do with his real age. Every human being is different from every other human being. Each one is unique in nature. We are the result of heredity, environment, diseases and psychological experiences. The passing of time will act in a different way on every one of us."

Signs. Ways of recognizing old age: headaches, vertigo, apoplectic attacks, convulsions, sudden and profound lapses of memory, confusion, restlessness, aphasia, physical disability, inability to assimilate new ideas (misoneism, neophobia). (Menas S. Gregory of Bellevue Hospital, Manhattan.)

Hygiene. Old people, in general, should continue the "bad" habits that let them live beyond middle age. This consideration gave President Samuel Waldron Lambert of the New York Academy of Medicine (host to this conference on old age) cause to praise the value of temperate alcoholic drinking. His speech cheered his audience, which made many a note. Said Dr. Lambert:

"There is no question, but that a little wine 'for the stomach's sake' represents a real therapeutic result and has an action not on the stomach but on its nearest neighbour, the heart.

"The taking of wine with a meal increases the desire for food and improves the nutrition. The wine itself requires no further digestion and is almost the only food product which will be absorbed from the stomach itself without further preparation or delay in its reaching the tissues. Alcohol is not a direct stimulant but acts directly as an antidote to the chronic poisoning of the heart from overindulgence in coffee and tobacco. . . .

"Alcohol, by its rapid absorption without the necessity of previous digestion, by its action to increase the amount of blood circulating in the capillaries of the skin, gives a feeling of distinct warmth and comfort to the aged. . . .

"The effects of the other poisons which are habitually used by man as part of his daily life are not so useful to him in his old age as is the much-abused alcohol which is now under the ban of the reformer and the taboo of the Constitution.

"One of the effects of Prohibition, with its elimination of a rapidly oxidizable food in the daily life of the American public, has been a marked tendency to turn to the next easily oxidizable food that is available.

"Since Prohibition, the consumption of sugar in the United States has increased tremendously and as a result of the strain on the pancreatic function, diabetes has become a more prevalent disease. Diabetes is not a prominent disease in the aged, but it is particularly true in the diabetes of old age that alcohol has a useful and prominent place in the treatment of the disease."

Consideration of old age makes young people think of famed old people. The U. S. has one important centenarian-- Emily Rowland of Sherwood, N. Y. Right after the Civil War she worked establishing schools for Negroes in Virginia. She was an early worker for women's rights, temperance (alcoholic), peace, education. Nov. 20 she will be 101. She is unmarried.

Canada's Sena tor George Dessaulles is a year older than Miss Howland. Grand Sachem of Tammany Hall, John R. Voorhis, is a year younger. Practically every day he goes to work.

Progressively younger are:

98. Ezra Meeker, Oregon pioneer, who years ago crossed this continent with an ox cart, who recently recrossed it in an airplane.

95. Professor William F. Warren, one-time (1873-1903) president of Boston University.

94. James Brown Herreshoff, yacht builder, inventor.

93. Mrs. William H. Felton, of Georgia, first woman to be appointed U. S. Senator.

92. Cardinal Vincenzo Vannatelli.

91. Dr. William Keen, surgeon and scientist.

90. Emile Loubet, President of the French Republic, 1899-1906; Edward P. Weston, long distance walker, now witless ; Gen. Valeriano Weyler, Spanish commander in Cuba in war of 1898; David A. Boody, onetime Mayor of Brooklyn, financier; Dr. Alpheus Baker Hervey, onetime (1888-94) president of St. Lawrence University, Canton, N. Y., whom Owen D. Young and other reverent business men honored a fortnight ago with a celebration.

89. John D. Rockefeller, founder of the Standard Oil Co.; William P. Clyde, steamship owner; Henry Phipps, philanthropist.

88. George F. Baker, banker.

87. Oliver Wendell Holmes; Georges Clemenceau.

86. Richard Vincent Jr., famous dahlia grower; Capt. Robert Dollar, shipping.

85. Rear Admiral Yates Stirling, U. S. N. (retired); Dr. F. L. Patton, onetime president of Princeton University.

*At Vienna last week Dr. Steinach claimed that he had completed many successful experiments in rejuvenating human organs by injecting a new gland extract. The juice, called "progynon," is reported taken from animal brains. Details are not yet available in the U. S.