' • ' MASS. 



Old Age and Natural Death 



The problems of old age and natural death are hardly yet 

 acknowledged to be within the province of genuine scientific 

 enquiry. This does not mean that biologists are ignorant of the 

 fact that such problems exist, nor that natural death is 

 altogether insusceptible of scientific treatment. It simply means 

 that no such treatment has been given it yet.* 



This neglect is partly the outcome of a certain quickening 

 in the tempo of biological research. The biologist of to-day is a 

 busy man: he has no time for anecdotes about the age of 

 tortoises, and wants more evidence than MetchnikofF had 

 power to give him before he takes steps to modify the flora of 

 his bowel. Yet nearly all the great theorists of the last century 

 were fond of teasing themselves with speculations about death. 

 ''Qu'est ce que la vief Claude Bernard^ asked himself: ''La vie, 

 c'est la mort.'' Life is combustion, and combustion death. ''La 

 vie est un minotaure, elle devore Vorganisme.'' This is only one of 

 alternative views on the nature of natural death. The distinc- 

 tion of first suggesting that natural death might be an epi- 

 phenomenon of life, rather than something of the very nature 



^ Definition de la Vie (1875); one of the essays reprinted in La Science 

 Experimentale, 7th ed., Paris, 1925. Also Bernard quoting Buffon. 



* [This is no longer true; there has now been a notable revival of interest 

 in senescence, supported in England by the Nuffield and Ciba Foundations, 

 and owing much to the apostolic vigour of Dr V. Korenchevsky. Alex 

 Comfort's The Biology of Senescence (London, 1956) summarizes much of 

 the work that has been published since this article was written.] 



B 17 



