Old age deferred : the prevention of the disabilities and diseases of old age / by Bernard Hollander, M. D.

  • Hollander, Bernard, 1864-1934.
Date:
[1933]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Old age deferred : the prevention of the disabilities and diseases of old age / by Bernard Hollander, M. D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    72/118 (page 60)
    longevity is confirmed by the observation that families with a large number of children are generally long-lived. On the other hand, no eunuch reaches a very advanced age. At the first International Congress of Studies on Population, held in Rome, the President, Professor Gini, discussed the relation of large families to longevity and made an interesting observation. He remarked that all the off¬ spring, both male and female, of long-lived persons had families larger than the average, which made it clear that fecundity went hand- in-hand with longevity. Further*,,*that the fathers of large families nearly always came from families in which the males predomin¬ ated ; and similarly the mothers from families in which the females predominated. Castration in man, before the age of puberty, is well known to prevent the growth of hair on the face, to arrest the growth of the chest and pelvis; and of the larynx, so that the voice of childhood is preserved. At the Papal court, choir boys with exceptionally fine voices used to be castrated in order to keep their voices high-pitched. These are secondary sex characters, and there is no doubt that they are due to the internal secretions of the sex glands. Such