550 OLD AGE. 



old people are merely a burden upon society, which ought to support 

 them simply because of our moral laws, is certainly erroneous. 



Xot only do the young, but many older persons share the opinion 

 that old people incapable of work are no longer good for anything. 

 Some ten years ago a celebrated German physiologist, who had 

 reached a great age, told me how he felt because of his uselessness to 

 society, and added: "What can one do? I can not decide to kill 

 myself." Well, now that science has taken up sei'iously the study of 

 the problem of old age, old people have become very useful subjects, 

 especially so for the young, who may be able to i)rofit bv the results 

 of these studies. If we should make way with the aged, as cei'tain 

 savage tribes still do, old age could never be modified nor ameliorated. 

 If we should make way with the sick, as was formerly done, and as is 

 still done among certain tribes, we should never discover any means 

 for curing diseases. If we had killed diphtheritics under the pretext 

 that tlie greater part of them were going to die and that they were a 

 source of danger to their healthy neighbors, we should never have 

 discovered the serum which now cures them. 



Old people, even in their condition of decrepitude, may be very 

 useful, on. condition that scientists can be found who will undertake 

 the task of carefully studying them. There is also a certain consola- 

 tion in the thought that when we ourselves have become incapable of 

 studying old age we may serve as sul)]ects of study to other observers. 

 In any case, it is to be hoped that in the future, which is, without 

 doubt, somewhat distant as yet. old age may cease to be one of the 

 greatest misfortunes of humanity, and that this chronic disease may 

 yield to the ever-increasing progress of exact science. 



