Old age deferred : the causes of old age and its postponement by hygienic and therapeutic measures... / by Arnold Lorand... Translated, with additions, by the author from the second German edition.

  • Lorand, Arnold.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Old age deferred : the causes of old age and its postponement by hygienic and therapeutic measures... / by Arnold Lorand... Translated, with additions, by the author from the second German edition. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    disease, for prevention is better than cure, says the English proverb. The preventive treatment of old age is in no less degree pos- sible than that of any other disease. To prevent old age ration- ally, we must avoid all those harmful agencies which may be deleterious to the glands with internal secretions, as it is the degeneration of these glands that brings it about. These agen- cies, however, being exceedingly numerous, we have mentioned in the previous chapter only those which are in the highest degree detrimental and also the most frequent. By avoiding these we believe we could successfully combat old age, but only for a certain time; and if not longer, in spite of our careful hygiene, it would not be our fault, but that of our ancestors of many generations ago who did not observe the rules of hygiene even as well as we do, and left us ductless glands of inferior quality. Parents can only bequeath to their children ductless glands of the same quality as they themselves possess. This undoubted fact is clearly proved by the experimental, pathological, and ana- tomical results we have mentioned in the chapter on heredity. We will illustrate this by the following examples, which will show how often it is difficult to avoid harmful agencies, and how much depends on having been born with healthy ductless glands. A person inhales air that contains virulent bacilli and con- tracts tuberculosis. Another drinks a glass of water or milk, contaminated by water or kept in vessels that have been washed with water containing the bacilli of Eberth, and contracts typhoid fever. Conversely, others who have inhaled the same air and drunk much more of the same water, have remained free from any infection. The cause of this is that the first mentioned have inherited defective ductless glands from their ancestors, and probably after- ward have ill-treated these glands by an immoderate use of all those agencies that are detrimental to them, such as alcohol, sexual excesses, much meat, tobacco, tea and coffee in large quan-