PAGE
I.Introduction[1]
II.Duration of Life[9]
III.Onset of Old Age[26]
IV.Factors influencing Longevity[32]
V.Causes of Senescence, with a note on Senescence and Carcinoma[62]
VI.Normal Structural Changes in Old Age[90]
VII.The Physiology of Old Age[115]
VIII.The Description of Old Age in the Twelfth Chapter of Ecclesiastes[129]
IX.Distinction between Healthy and Morbid Old Age[135]
X.Diseases in and of Old Age[139]
Index[157]

ILLUSTRATIONS

FIG.FACE PAGE
1.William Heberden, M.D., F.R.S.[2]
2.Sir Thomas Watson, Bt., M.D., F.R.S.[4]
3.Professor John Haviland, M.D., F.R.C.P.[6]
4.Henry Jenkins, reputed to have lived 169 years[20]
5.Thomas Parr, reputed to have lived 152 years[22]
6.Katherine, Countess of Desmond, reputed to have lived 140 years[24]
7.Petratsch Zortan, in his reputed 185th year[26]
8.Hungarian husband and wife, reputed to be 172 and 164 years old respectively[36]
9.Sir Henry Pitman, M.D., F.R.C.P., a medical centenarian[52]

I
INTRODUCTION

The Linacre Foundation dating from 1524 is the oldest medical Lectureship in the University, for it was sixteen years later that the Regius Professorship of Physic was established by Henry VIII. Formerly this College Lectureship was held more or less indefinitely by Fellows of the College, with two eminent exceptions, namely, Sir George Paget and Dr. J. B. Bradbury; but in 1908 the Lectureship was made an annual and open appointment, and until this year no member of the College has held this office: I am therefore most deeply conscious of the high honour that has been conferred upon me.

Though the statute that the Lecturer should explain Galen’s treatises De Sanitate Tuenda and De Methodo Medendi as translated by Linacre, or De Elementis et Simplicibus, has long lapsed, his first words should be directed to the pious memory of the founder; but as in 1908 the late Sir William Osler[1] devoted the first of the new series of Linacre Lectures to a sympathetic consideration of his brother scholar-physician, it would be worse than unwise to attempt more than the briefest reference.

Fig. 1.—William Heberden, M.D., F.R.S., in his 86th year. Linacre Lecturer, 1734–38.