THE CHANGING INCIDENCE OF CERTAIN 



VASCULAR LESIONS OF THE SKIN WITH 



AGEING 



W. B. Bean, m.d., 



Department of Medicine and the University Hospitals of the College of Medicine, 

 State University of Iowa, Iowa City, U.S.A. 



The subdued tones of discussion of the sombre aspects of 

 ageing have echoed down the immemorial lanes of history; 

 and the subject has been treated variously by writers and 

 philosophers from Cicero to Ponce de Leon, from Seneca to 

 Browning. Our recent preoccupation with gerontology in an 

 ageing society casts oblique Darwinian light on those who, 

 growing old, pontificate upon growing old. Gray hair, obesity, 

 wrinkles, presbyopia, loss of muscle tone, the menopause, 

 the burden of disease in later decades — all these have had 

 increasing attention. Yesterday's introductory probings, 

 aimilig for a definition of ageing without a prior definition 

 of life or of time — Newtonian or Einsteinian — illustrate the 

 large difficulties of our problem. Is ageing merely the running 

 down of a wound-up clock, a Calvinistic view, or is it such a 

 process in a clock which is buffeted about and thus does not 

 run as long as its unbuffeted control? 



Yesterday's suggestion that we get more data by observing 

 the process and progress of ageing as it goes, rather than look 

 at the artificially stopped frame in a moving picture of 

 panoramic dimensions, gives a mere clinical observer some 

 excuse for participating in this colloquium which I take to 

 mean talking to each other. Thus as junior in wisdom and 

 in years but still a member of an ageing society, I join in our 

 increasing and self-conscious focus upon gerontology. I hope I 

 may avoid a geriatric hazard not always escaped in the 



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