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

94 страница из 141

A similar retention of the sexual sense we see in the advanced years of Victor Hugo, whose admiration of the opposite sex continued till his death. Ibsen, the celebrated Norwegian dramatist, kept up a well-known correspondence with a young lady whom he met at Marienbad a short time before he died in advanced old age.

Sometimes in women of extreme age instances are quoted that would seem to indicate that in them also the activity of the sexual glands may not have been extinct. It is stated that Ninon de l’Enclos^[111] was in her 90th year still so beautiful that a young abbé fell desperately in love with her. We know an Italian lady of 69 who is still good-looking, presenting the appearance of 45, and she still menstruates. That she was sexually active is shown by the fact that she has 12 children. There is more fire in the eyes of this Italian matron than in many women of half her age. That the possession of active sexual glands influences the looks very much can also be proved by the pale, yellow-gray and aged looks of even young women suffering from serious chronic diseases of the sexual glands, and also of women who have caused these organs to degenerate owing to sexual excesses.