3Q0 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



It will easily be seen that the diseases which disturb the formerly 

 evenly balanced organism tend toward what pathologists call destruc- 

 tive metamorphosis. Blood-changes, tissue-changes, and secretory 

 changes, are subjecting us to constantly varying standards of health. 

 How to maintain the equipoise as long as possible, and prevent the too 

 rapid decline of the vital forces, as well as to suggest measures when 

 care and forethought can ward off the blow is the province of the 

 thoughtful medical man. 



Threescore years and ten should certainly be reached by most of 

 those who attain adult age, provided no inherited taint weakens the 

 vital forces. It is difficult to determine the exact period of life at 

 which the decline commences. In fact, there can be no absolute stand- 

 ard from which we can predict with unvarying certainty the gradual 

 failure of the physical powers. Some seem to inherit a vitality which 

 almost defies the ravages of time ; but, although they are apparently 

 in the full vigor of life, close scrutiny rarely fails to detect the fact 

 that the scale is tipping downward. We do not grow old in a night, 

 although we often make the remark that So-and-so has grown ten 

 years older since the occurrence of some great grief, or some disas- 

 trous reverse in business. The eye-sight gets poorer, the hair and 

 beard grayer and thinner ; the form is more bent, the walk more 

 uncertain, the circus senilis appears in the cornea. After all, this is 

 not old age; these are all warnings, but the heart is still warm, the eye 

 still bright, the muscles still firm. The world looks as fair and invit- 

 ing as it did in early manhood or womanhood a little larger print 

 to read, a smoother road to walk on, a few more flannels at night, and 

 a little less labor during the day, with perhaps a greater disposition 

 toward quiet, a greater fondness for home-life, and a disinclination to 

 encourage the enthusiasms which time and experience have so often 

 proved to them to be illusive. 



We are to consider the physiological and pathological conditions 

 arising during this epoch of life. Many of these are characteristic, 

 and do not earlier manifest themselves. We have many works upon 

 the diseases of children and adult life, but almost none pertaiuing to 

 the diseases incident to age. And yet they are peculiar. The pneu- 

 monia of a child is not the pneumonia of an aged person. Slight 

 ailments, unobserved or disregarded in the adult, become positive dis- 

 ease in advanced life. Our acute fevers, inflammations, fluxes, etc., 

 are not met with among the aged. 



Congestions, chronic inflammations, tumors of the brain, paralysis, 

 rupture of blood-vessels, enlargement of the heai-t, chronic bronchial 

 affections, dropsical effusions, indigestion, diseases of kidneys and 

 bladder, especially the latter, cancers, etc., are what the physician is 

 most often called upon to prescribe for in old people. Aside from 

 actual disease, the conduct of the life of elderly persons is to be 

 studied and observed. Ordinarily old age brings with it, or should, 



