Some Medical Aspects of Old Age: Being the Linacre lecture, 1922, St. John's college, CambridgeRolleston, Humphry Davy, Sir
Science
Some Medical Aspects of Old Age: Being the Linacre lecture, 1922, St. John's college, Cambridge
Rolleston, Humphry Davy, Sir
Geriatrics; Linacre lecture, St. John's college, Cambridge; Longevity
Smoking among centenarians was specially investigated by Sir George
Humphry, who found that among 19 male centenarians 8 smoked much,
one a little, and 10 not at all; while out of 30 female centenarians
4 smoked much, 2 moderately or little, and 24 not at all. There is
no doubt that with advancing years there is commonly a relative loss
of tolerance for tobacco, so that unpleasant symptoms ranging from
cardiac extra-systoles, through abdominal pain, to tobacco angina,
may dictate discontinuance of the habit. But a large number of old
people have smoked in earlier life though subsequently non-smokers.
Personal tolerance to tobacco shows great variations, and there is no
doubt that well-marked symptoms may be caused by tobacco. But that
moderate smoking diminishes the chance of longevity has certainly not
been proved. Much discussion has taken place as to the relation between
smoking and arteriosclerosis; it is true that in animals nicotine in
considerably larger doses than can be absorbed by smokers, damages
the arteries, and Huchard and Lazarus were convinced that it caused
arteriosclerosis. Sir Clifford Allbutt,[77] after quoting the various
opinions, points out that if tobacco be a cause of arterial disease,
it acts very slowly, for at 45 years of age, after a quarter of a
century’s exposure, the smoker’s arteries are not distinguishable from
those of the abstainer’s; and he mentions the arteriosclerosis of
the ancient Egyptians and of women as incidents detracting from any
argument that tobacco is an important cause of arterial disease.
A large proportion of the centenarians and persons over 80 years of
age collected by Sir George Humphry obeyed the adage early to rise and
early to bed, and I well remember that he used to lay stress on the
factor of getting up directly one woke and so denying the flesh the
luxury of further sleep. Whether going to bed early and getting up
early is more than an index of a life otherwise spent in accordance
with the late Sir Andrew Clark’s “laws of physiological righteousness”
may be questioned.
_Bodily Conformation._--Long-lived people are usually spare, obesity
being rare, and, allowing for some shortening due to age, of a good
average height (Humphry). It is interesting in this connexion to quote
the conclusions arrived at by Robertson and Ray[78] from comparison of
groups of long-lived and short-lived white mice in similar conditions.
The long-lived were relatively stable, highly resistant to external
disturbing factors, displaying subnormal variability and a more or
less well-marked, but not invariable, tendency to early overgrowth
and relative paucity of tissue accretion in late life; while the
short-lived animals showed exactly the opposite features with a
tendency to rapid increase of tissue in late life.
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