The frequency of suicide in the case of the old has been established by numerous statistics, and the new facts which I now cite do no more than confirm it. In 1878, in Prussia, amongst 100,000 individuals there were 154 cases of suicide of men between the ages of 20 and 50, but 295, that is to say, nearly twice as many of men between the ages of 50 and 80. In Denmark, a country in which suicide is notoriously common, a similar proportion exists. Thus, in Copenhagen, in the ten years from 1886 to 1895, there were 394 suicides of men between 50 and 70. These figures relate to 100,000 individuals. Of the suicides 36-1/2 per cent. were those of people in the prime of life, 63-1/2 per cent. those of the aged.[1] In such circumstances, it is natural that politicians and philanthropists have made many attempts to ameliorate the old age of the poor. In some countries laws have been passed to bring about this. For instance, a Danish law of June 27th, 1891, established compulsory aid for the aged, enacting that every person more than 60 years old was to have the legal right to aid if required. In 1896 more than 36,000 people (36,246) were pensioned under this law, at a cost of nearly £200,000. In Belgium, the indigent old people are not pensioned until they reach the age of 65. In France, until recently, the aged poor could be supported at the public expense only by prosecuting them and sending them to prison for begging. This state of affairs, however, ceased with the application of the law of July 15th, 1905, according to which any French subject without resources, unable to support himself by work, and either more than 70 years of age, or suffering from some incurable infirmity or disease, is to receive public assistance. It has been thought the proper course to make such laws, and to lay the burden on the general population, without inquiring if it may not be possible to retard the debility of old age to such an extent that very old people might still be able to earn their livelihood by work. Old age can be studied by the methods of exact science, and there may yet be established some regimen by which health and vigour will be preserved beyond the age where now it is generally necessary to resort to public charity. With this object, a systematic investigation of senescence should be made in institutions for the aged, where there are always a large number of people from 75 to 90 years old, although centenarians are extremely rare. I know many institutions for aged men where, from their first foundation, there has been no case of an inhabitant reaching the age of 100, and even in similar institutions for women, although women live to much greater ages than men, centenarians are very rare. At the Salpêtrière, for instance, where there is always a large number of old women, it is the rarest chance to find a centenarian. Opportunity for the study of the extremely aged is to be found only in private families.