When first approaching the subject of old age every one must recall the famous description in the first six verses of the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes beginning “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt say I have no pleasure in them.” Formerly ascribed to King Solomon (977 B.C.) the book of Ecclesiastes (in Hebrew Koheleth = the preacher) has been shown by the higher criticism to date only from the end of the third century B.C., and from internal evidence, namely references to the brain, spinal cord, and other anatomical structures, though expressed with poetic imagery, it may fairly be assumed that a medical man was concerned with its construction. In his attractive work, _A Gentle Cynic_,[195] the late Professor Morris Jastrow, jun., of Philadelphia explained that the book of Ecclesiastes as it appears in the authorized version, consists of (i.) the original, cynical, but good-natured _obiter dicta_ of the unknown dilettante who preferred to veil his identity under the name of Koheleth, and (ii.) additions and modifications made by various hands to render it more orthodox and compatible with the tradition that it was written by Solomon; thus the admonition “of making books there is no end and much study is a weariness of the flesh” may very probably have been intended as a hint that Koheleth’s views should not be taken too seriously. Following this conception Jastrow reconstructed the text of the book of Ecclesiastes to what he argued was its original form, and compared it with the more modern writings of Omar Kháyyám and Heinrich Heine. As we all must have speculated over the correct interpretation of the various metaphors in this description of the last stage of life, the explanations offered by others, such as Andreas Laurentius (1599),[196] Master Peter Lowe (1612),[197] founder of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, Bishop J. Hall (1633),[198] John Smith (1665),[199] Richard Mead (1775),[200] and Jastrow may be very briefly mentioned. The second verse, “While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain,” is regarded by Laurentius, Lowe, and Hall as referring to the ocular disabilities of old age, whereas Smith and Mead consider that mental failure and depression are meant. As regards the third verse, “In the day when the keepers of the house (the hands) shall tremble, and the strong men (the legs) shall bow themselves (become bent), and the grinders (teeth) cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows (the eyes) be darkened,” there is general agreement, Lowe specially designating cataract as meant in the last sentence. “And the doors shall be shut in the streets,” is regarded as referring to the mouth by Laurentius and Mead, and to the various orifices including the results--constipation and dysuria--by Smith; “when the sound