THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 



MONTHLY 



JUNE, 1907 



THE PEOBLEM OF AGE, GROWTH AND DEATH. 1 



By CHARLES SEDGWICK MINOT, LL.D., D.Sc. 



JAMES STILLMAN PROFESSOR OF COMPARATIVE ANATOMY IN THE HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL. 



I. The Condition of Old Age 



r|^HE subject of age has ever been one which has attracted human 

 -*- thought. It leads us so near to the great mysteries that all 

 thinkers have contemplated it, and many are the writers who from 

 the literary point of view have presented us, sometimes with profound 

 thought, often with beautiful images connected with the change from 

 youth to old age. We need but to think of two books familiar more 

 or less to us all — that ancient classic, Cicero's De Senectute, the great 

 book on age, one might almost say, from the literary standpoint, and 

 that of our own fellow-citizen, my former teacher and professor at 

 the Medical School, Dr. Holmes, who in his delightful ' Autocrat ' 

 offers to us some of his charming speculations upon age. From the 

 time of Cicero to the time of Holmes numerous authors have written 

 on old age, yet among them all we shall scarcely find any one who 

 had title to be considered as a scientific writer upon the subject. 

 Longevity is indeed a strange and difficult problem. Many of you 

 doubtless have had your attention directed recently to the republished 

 translation of Connaro's famous work and know how sensible that is, 

 and as you read it you must have perceived how little in the practical 

 aspect of the matter we have passed beyond the advice which old 

 Connaro gave to us. And yet silently in the medical laboratories, 

 and in the physiological and anatomical institutes of various univer- 

 sities, we have been gathering more accurate information as to what 

 is the condition of persons who are very old. 



1 Lectures delivered at the Lowell Institute, Boston, March, 1907. 

 VOL. LXX. — 31. 



