August 29, 1890.] 



SCIENCE. 



123 



I am free to admit, however, that no plan of operation or co- 

 operation can be devised that will work to the complete satisfaction 

 of everybody. We sometimes have men to deal with who are not 

 amenable to either law or reason. ^ 



In his presidential address before the American Association at 

 Cleveland, Professor Langley compared the advance made by sci- 

 entific men in their search after truth to that of a pack of hounds 

 following a trail. Permit me to carry this simile still further. 

 Hounds understand that it is their business to follow the game, 

 and, when left to their own instincts and wishes, they will follow 

 it. Now imagine a bull dog seized with the ambition to become 

 a hunter and joining the pack of hounds. Every one knows that 

 the bull dog will, in spite of any thing that can be done, hare a 

 fight with half a dozen, or, more likely, with the whole pack of 

 hounds, by the time the chase is well under way. 



It is not a pleasing reflection to remember that the great search 

 after truth, in which every genuine man of science is engaged, 

 heart and soul, is often interrupted in this same fashion by the 

 pugnacious disposition of some companion. 



Let me recapitulate some of tlie benefits to be derived from 

 voluntary and cordial co-operation between all geologists and all 

 geologic organizations in this country: 



1. Geologic research being under the nominal direction of the 

 leading investigator?, would be so conducted as to be of the great- 

 est utility to the largest number. 



2. When a piece of work was done by one it would be done for 

 all, and duplication by State surveys and by individuals and the 

 consequent waste of energy, time, and money would cease. 



3. The functions and fields of oSicial organizations being better 

 defined. State and National surveys and individuals could so di- 

 rect their eS'orts as to serve the purposes of others without neg- 

 lecting their own immediate aims and without infringmg upon 

 each others" grounds. 



4. National and State surveys would be strengthened, and local 

 organizations and individual effort encouraged. 



5. It would give us a better geologic literature, better instruc- 

 tion, better geologists, and more thorough specialists. 



6. And finally, we trust, it would put a stop to those oracles of 

 science who are so ready to prophesy in its name. This ideal 

 state of affairs may never be brought about, but it is none the less 

 desirable that we should aim at it. For the more nearly we ap- 

 proximate to it the more rapid will be the progress of science, and 

 the progress of science is the progress of civilization. 



To paraphrase a recent utterance of Bishop Potter, " It would 

 be a monstrous conception of science if any one of us were to es- 

 teem it only as a selfish weapon with which he was to carve his 

 way to personal fame and fortune." It has often been used for 

 just that purpose. Higher ideals will give us nobler motives. 



ON CERTAIN PHENOMENA OF GROWING OLD. ' 



After a few introductory remarks on the choice of a subject. 

 Dr. Minot said that he had been guided in his selection by the idea 

 of taking a subject which would be of general interest and indi- 

 cate, if possible, the new directions in which biology is developing. 

 For this reason he had chosen the subject as announced in the 

 title of the address. He spoke first of the law of variations as 

 connected with the age of the living organism. When variations 

 occur which are due simply to chance, it is found that they are 

 distril:)uted according to a regular curve on either side of a maxi- 

 mum; I'jut when we study the variations which occur in the living 

 organism we find that there the curve is irregular, and that there 

 is a certain point of maximum which occurs at a definite age, and 

 that the ascent of that curve toward the maximum is steeper upon 

 the young side than upon the older. The speaker presented a 

 number of examples of this taken from the age at which Harvard 

 students enter college, from the growth of children, from the age 

 at which maturity is attained in the female sex, from the age of 

 mothers and the number of children which they have had at each 

 age, and giving other examples, without, however, presenting 



1 Abstract of an address before the Section of Biology of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, at Indianapolis, Ind., Aug. 20, 

 1890, by Charles S Minot, vice-president of the section. 



them in statistical form. In all of these cases the same peculiarity 

 of the curve being steep on the young side, and less steep upon the 

 old side, recurs. But in all these cases the maximum occurs at a 

 comparatively early period of life. In other cases, as, for instance, 

 when we discuss the relation of suicide to age, we find that the 

 maximum frequency occurs at a much more advanced period, 

 and in this case the curve becomes steep upon the old side, so that 

 there is here a large field of statistical inquiry which is to be 

 worked out, and there is a large amount of material which might, 

 if properly put into shape, yield valuable results. We might study 

 from this point of view the relation of various diseases to age, the 

 relation of the birth of the first child to the age of the parent, of 

 the acquisition of fame, the age of second marriage, the age at 

 which distinguished authors have published their first book, the 

 age of entering the United States Senate, etc. All these and 

 other similar data might be utilized for the purpose of the biologist 

 to study the law of variation in connection with age. At the 

 present time there is not suflBcient work done in this direction to 

 enable us to draw any more general conclusion than that which 

 has been presented above. 



The peculiarity of the curve of variation is unquestionably due 

 to what may be called senescence, or growing old. This senescence 

 shows itself in the fact that toward the younger period the same 

 range of alteration takes place as toward the older period in more 

 advanced age. This is particularly well illustrated by a series of 

 elaborate experiments upon guinea pigs and their growth made 

 by the speaker. These experiments, which were interrupted by 

 an accident which destroyed the whole stock of animals, show 

 that the loss of vital power commences with birth, and that in 

 order to add a given percentage to the weight of an animal a much 

 longer period is required when it is old than when it is young. 

 This was illustrated by statistics and diagrams. The general re- 

 sult may best be expressed by saying that the older an organism 

 is, the more time it requires to produce a given change, and this 

 indicates that there is a progressive loss of vitality. The difference 

 between this view and the current one is that, in the speaker's 

 opinion, there is, scientifically speaking, no period of development, 

 but only a steady decline from birth onwards. 



The speaker then turned to the second part of his subject, and 

 discussed how far anatomical peculiarities can be found to be . 

 correlated with this progressive line of vitality. He took up the 

 various tissues of the body, considering them one after another in 

 their order of development, and showed that in each one of the 

 principal tissues and organs the cells composing them exhibit the 

 same peculiarity; namely, that in their young condition they con- 

 tain only a small amount of protoplasm, and in their adult condi- 

 tion a very much larger amount, so that the proportion of proto- 

 plasm to the nucleus increases with the age of the organism. 

 This fact, which can be readily verified in the case of the higher 

 animals, finds also certain support in the development of many of 

 the lower forms, which were also briefly discussed. Hence the 

 conclusion that the development of protoplasm is associated with 

 the loss of vitality, and that instead of speaking of protoplasm as 

 the physical basis of life, we might speak of it as the physical 

 basis of advancing decrepitude; or, since the changes involved in 

 growing old lead to death, we might designate it as the physical 

 cause of death. These definitions of protoplasm are too dictionary- 

 like, and might be misleading if taken strictly, but they can at 

 least teach us that protoplasm is by no means a simple jelly which 

 explains in a simple manner all the phenomena of life, but it is in 

 reality an extremely complex substance, as complex as life itself. 

 We see in this problem of age a series of phenomena which are 

 not especially associated with any organ or any system of oi'gans 

 of the body, but something which involves all parts alike. Such 

 a study as this goes, strictly speaking, in the direction of general 

 biology. Hitherto we have had comparative anatomy and physi- 

 ology, but of general biology extremely little. The speaker ex- 

 pressed his belief that the future of biology would lead in this 

 direction, and that the study of the organism as a whole would 

 supercede in the near future to a large extent the present study 

 of the separate organs, both in then- physiological and morphologi- 

 cal aspects. 



There is a great deal to be done, for it is only in the domain of 



