Читать книгу Old Age Deferred. The causes of old age and its postponement by hygienic and therapeutic measures онлайн

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As a general rule the first symptoms of old age do not appear before the fortieth or forty-fifth year. There are, however, many persons who, much earlier, occasionally even before thirty, show some of the typical symptoms of senility: corpulence, gray hair, wrinkles in the face, falling out of the hair and loss of teeth, etc., for example. The gums also are retracted from the teeth, which consequently appear greatly lengthened; later on the teeth become loosened and fall out. This then causes the jaw bones to atrophy, when the face becomes sunken, and the individual appears many years older. The hair loses its original color and becomes dry and gray, especially on the temples. The appearance of bald spots surrounded by gray hair increases the aged appearance of the face. On examination, the pulse of such persons may exhibit a high tension, the temporal arteries may be tortuous, and the skin found to be dry. A sensation of cold in the extremities is especially frequent. There is, as a rule, a tendency to constipation. The mental faculties are also altered; the memory weakens, and the mind is often depressed. Neurasthenia or hysteria become frequent in such persons, while impotence in men and menstrual disorders in women develop. The urine may be found to contain traces of albumin and occasionally a few hyaline casts. The presence of these, according to Professor Senator,^[1] indicates a degeneration of the convoluted tubules of the kidneys, and thus the loss of important elements of the chief excretory organ of the human body.