General Discussion 49 



distorting it. It is quite easy when you are dealing mth inorganic 

 matter — Prof. Medawar's test-tubes — ^to make certain assumptions; in 

 the biological problem once you take it out of its context and fix it you 

 have got to be very careful that you do not draw wrong conclusions. 



Vischer: I too was very impressed by the importance Prof. Lewis put 

 on the necessity for longitudinal studies. There is some work which is a 

 splendid first attempt at longitudinal investigation, and that is the 

 famous book of the Viennese psychologist Charlotte Buehler, who now 

 lives in California. The book is called The Course of Life as a Psychologi- 

 cal Problem. Then I venture to point to the wealth of information you 

 can find in general literature. I don't think we can get better insight 

 into the mentality of the old than for example you find in Indian 

 Summer by Galsworthy, or in King Lear, or if you take the life of 

 Goethe, who lived all the different stages with great intensity and had 

 the power to express them. I think there is very much to gain if you 

 study these examples in general literature. 



Then there is the question of the psychosomatic influence of loss of 

 work. Most of you have seen people who, when they were pensioned, 

 had a sudden crisis of their body function and they passed away very 

 quickly. 



Another question is, isn't it a fact that the number of ganglion cells 

 diminishes in old people — does that have any correlation Avith the 

 general mental state? 



Lewis: The ganglion cells disappear, like so many other changes that 

 have been described. Oskar and Cecile Vogt made a very careful study 

 of the thalamus about ten years ago in the brains of several old men of 

 intellectual distinction whose powers were unimpaired, and compared 

 it with those of others who had had unmistakable senile dementia. In 

 both they found the same changes in the central median nucleus, so that 

 it is impossible to feel confident that there is any necessary connection 

 between intellectual powers and the ganglion or other changes that are 

 observed. 



On the other question, about retirement, I would say that it depends 

 so much on the personality of the individual and on the opportunities 

 which society affords him. It has been repeatedly pointed out that the 

 roles and prestige of the old man in more simple societies were more 

 satisfying than those which await the old now. We have given them 

 security in return for loneliness, so to speak. I would subscribe to the 

 view that was recently taken by David Riesman who divided old people 

 into three groups. There were those ^ho had lived successful lives, 

 taking the jobs that society set them, the jobs offered them by normal 

 careers, who had fulfilled these adequately, and on retirement had gone 

 to pieces unless they could take up other jobs, such as hobbies or playing 

 golf, with as much energy as they tackled everything in their business 

 career. A second group, whom he described as "anomic", have resigned 

 from life quite early on, and simply meet minimal requirements; when 

 those minimal requirements, which served as struts during their active 

 life, are removed on retirement, they go to pieces. Then there is a more 

 effective group who remain creative and lead satisfying lives — ^he gave 



