Return this b re the Latest Date underlining of books ction and may m the University, of Illinois Library RPS 28 |1964 NOV 1B 1934 Mon 1s 1969 EDITED BY UG. STANLEY HALL, op. C.SANFORD, ann &. B. TITCHENER, anes ie mone ite Cornell University. wien THE CO-OPERATION OF oo tanford university: H. BEAUNIS, Uni- Shas ies aeons Paris; $i HENRI, Leipzig; ae Ey aisle :/ . Hol on, dark University; A. KIRSCH- SUTROAO niversity of Toronto; O. KULPE, aE: ‘University of Wiirzburg; a W. STOR- _ RING, University of Betpae 3 A, ae has pileriet soul F ALBEE, London WOLFE, 3 asia ia eae EG University of Neproeks. Ley etewkg vi WORCESTER, MASS. — a RAT ‘ : eae et H. OrnpnHa, PUBLISHER. : ; + as Acains London: Trtsnzr & Co. Paris: Em. Pieavru. od shin Ez. Lorscurr. Leipzig: F. A. BrockHavs. :\Mayer & MULLER, RE * mecond class matter at Worsevien Post Office. Copyright, 1896, by G. Stanley Hall, : . ; ad ae COLIN A. SCOTT, Fellow in Psychology. Clark University. G. STANLEY HALL. Se oa REPRINTED FROM . 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The evolution of both the race and the in- dividual is as much concerned with the effective dismissal of old and ante-dated organs as with the production of new ones. ! Minot? indeed regards the whole course of individual life from the moment of the union of the two reproductive cells as a gradual decay, and has attempted by elaborate weigh- ings to prove that during the minority or period of growth of guinea pigs, the actual vitalforce diminishes steadily. At the same time we must not lose sight of the fact that senescing cells, such as glandular products and organs like the gill-slits, etc., of the vertebrata, exercise a stimu- lating influence upon the organs which remain or take their place. Their force is passed on rather than lost, and while: decay is undoubtedly a constant and necessary factor in all vital manifestations, and whatever may be true of the ultimate ‘“‘ vital force,’’ it must be admitted that the functions of life as they may be observed in any specialized organism, increase for a time in strength, range, and complexity, pass through a period of comparative poise, and finally break up and disappear. These three natural periods, however further they may be divided (C; Flourens, e. g.) are emphatically punctuated by the advent and decline of the sexual and reproductive functions, which may thus be regarded as crowning the physiological devel- opment of the individual. In many species, however, as Weissmann, Goette, Geddes and others have pointed out, the closing stage is- wanting. There is no gradual senescence, but death 'The ability to forget, e. g., is as important to psychic health as the capacity to acquire. Cf. paragraph on the funeral. "Jour. Phys., May, ’91, and Biologisches Centralblatt, XV, No. 15. Paxed 68 SCOTT : follows immediately upon the completion of the repro- ductive functions. Weissmann regards this as due entirely to external conditions operating upon the individual through natural selection, and tries to show that death is a favorable adaptation to get rid of senility, which he thus accepts as fundamental and due to a ‘‘ wearing out.’’ Goette! on the other hand regards death as the fundamental fact, a necessity inherent in life itself, an unavoidable consequence of repro- duction, and represented in the protozoa by encystment and rejuvenation.2 Death must, he says, have become necessary and hereditary in a number of individuals before it could possibly become useful and thus operated upon by natural selection.* Senility he regards as having been ‘‘ acquired in the course of development of the race.’’4 But it is impossible to separate, as Weissmann does com- pletely and Goette to a less extent, the individual and its en- vironment. A view which combines the internal physiologi- cal causes of Goette and the external, natural selection, or teleological causes of Weissmann as both necessary and com- plementary to each other, is the only one which can have any application to organisms as they at present exist. The point of fundamental importance brought out by both Goette and Weissmann is that death and senility are ultimately func- tions of the species, primarily of phylogenetic importance, whether regarded as being originally necessary to the con- tinuance of life, or impressed upon it from without, and enter the life of the individual as such, in connection with the sexual and reproductive functions. The experiments of Maupas® with Stylonichia pustulata, one of the most highly developed protozoans, are inter- preted by him (in opposition to Weissmann’s view of the immortality of the protozoans) as demonstrating the fact of senile degeneration followed by death in these ani- mals. S. pustulata multiplies by division at a tempera- ture of 24° to 28° C., dividing as often as five times in twenty-four hours.® Beginning with an individual which had just conjugated, Maupas followed the multiplication to the 313th division when he had 510 individuals. He 1 Life and Death, ‘‘ Biological Memoirs,” p. 135. **Ueber der Ursprung des Todes.”’ ° Recherches expérimentales sur la multiplication des infusories ciliés, in the Archives de Zodlogie expér. et gen., 1888, No. 2. *If all of the resulting individuals could be nourished to the fif- tieth generation,that is, in thirty days, there would be one followed by forty-four zeros, which, if united in one mass, would make a sphere a million times greater than the sun in volume. OLD AGE AND DEATH. 69 found that at the 100th division degeneration began and in- creased to the 240th. At the 130th generation, sexed indi- viduals appeared, which were about half the original volume. At the last fission the animals were only 1-60 of the original volume. At the 316th division he isolated one of the 510 in- dividuals and found that it produced ‘‘ nothing but abortions, incapabie of reproducing, and which shortly died.’’1 This extinction Maupas calls senile degeneration, thus very ques- tionably homologizing this series of separate cells, artificially prevented from normal conjugation, with a series of mutually dependent and connected cells such as may be found in any metazoan. A.M. Marshall? appears to accept this homology, but nevertheless agrees with Weissmann in thinking that death is not an intrinsic necessity of life, but appears first in the higher protozoan in close reciprocal connection with con- jugation and reproduction. Since we do not know, says he,? ‘at what period or to what extent the somatic cells of a met- azoan lose their power of conjugating,’’ nor what occurs in vaccination or transfusion of blood, he suggests, as a matter of theory, the possibility of discovering some means of re- juvenescence for the somatic cells, a possibility which G. A. Stephens of Norway Lake, Me. (‘‘Long Life’’), in estab- lishing a laboratory for the purpose, seems to be inclined to devote some effort towards realizing! Other special hypotheses on the causes of death have not been particularly fruitful. Butschlit thinks that life is the result of a ferment which the protozoans and the germinative plasma have the power of manufacturing. When the ferment is exhausted, life ceases. According to Lendl® every cell by the very fact of living accumulates in it substances, some useful, some not, which are nevertheless foreign to the pure germ- inative plasma. This material he calls ballast, and regards it as the cause of death. ‘The reproductive cells keep them- selves pure by loading this material on to other cells. He supposes that the protozoans divide so that one cell retains the ballast, while the other is free. A certain number of the protozoans are thus doomed to death. Delbceuf® says that the precipitation of the substance of the organs towards the inorganic causes death. Dantec’ represents death with 1J. Delbceuf, ‘Pourquoi mourons-nous ?”? Rev. Phil., Mar. and Apr., 1891. **¢ Biological Lectures and Addresses,’’ chap. on Death, p. 283. 9 gs 4“Cedanken iiber Leben und Tod,’”’ Zodl. Anz., V, 64-67. 5*¢ Hypothese iiber die Entstehung von Soma- und Propagationszellen.”’ Jena, 1890. 6 Art. cit. 7 Rev. Phil., Jan., Feb. and May, 1895. 70 SCOTT : the primitive forms as an alternative to evolution, or change into another species. This becomes necessary, both because material for assimilation becomes. ex- hausted owing to the narrow confines of the globe, and formed products are left within the plastid. He thinks that it might be much more possible to develop a new species from a moner than to begin higher up the scale where the plastids or individual cells are already highly de- veloped. Delage,1 observing the almost universal correla- tion of differentiation with loss of germinative power, looks upon differentiation as the cause of death. Minot? insists upon the converse of this and regards the embryo as a special arrangement permitting the increase of undifferentiated cells, and consequently a higher organization. Spencer says that for both somatic and germinal cells it is a matter of environ- ment which may permit or not the continuance of nutri- tion. Of the general vital theories, all of which bear upon the question of death and senility, we shall be forced to confine ourselves to a brief mention of the ideas of Roux, which per- haps, because he has paid the greatest attention to ontogeny, apply more directly to the concrete facts, about to be dis- cussed, of the last stage of human existence, where, with the ceasing of the deeply hereditary racial or reproductive life, the more purely individual or ontogenetic features are more. sharply defined. Roux? is described by Delage in contrast with the animists, evolutionists, and micromerists as an or- ganicist, by which he means the acceptance of a moderate de- termination by heredity with the addition of ‘‘ surrounding forces, always active, always necessary, not simply the condition of activity, but an essential element of the final product.’’+ Roux thus harmonizes the extremes of Weissmann and Goette, already referred to, by bring- ing to view the fact of an internal or physiological strug- gle for existence among the organs, the cells, and the protoplasmic molecules of the organism. ‘‘ This unsimilarity of parts,’’ says he,® ‘‘makes it impossible to establish laws of heredity which shall govern details of function to the last cell or molecule,—as in any army the commander-in-chief does not give special orders beforehand affecting every pri- vate in the ranks. ‘There must be a possibility of adaptation to surroundings, especially in details, which, too, are more 1 Op. cit., p. 709. * Biol. Centr., XV, 15. 3 “Der Kampf der Theile im Organismus,’’ Leipsic, 1881. “ Op. cit., p. 720. > “Der Kampf der Theile im Organismus,” p. 71. OLD AGE AND DEATH. 71 easily changed than events on a larger scale.’?’ How is this freedom of organs and of adaptation obtained? | Roux believes that the principle that lies back of all de- velopment of tissues and organs is over-compensation of what is used, a quality which permits self-regula- tion, and is really a necessary precondition of life. Living matter, unlike inorganic matter, presents an exter- nal continuity in spite of the change of conditions. To effect this, assimilation must always be in excess (over-compensation), for if less than consumption the organ- ism comes to an end of itself. If equal, conditions change, and nourishment will fail or injurious events will cause de- struction. Continuance can only be assured when more is assimilated than is consumed. He ‘illustrates this by the example of fire, which assimilates more than it uses, 2. e., it always has energy left over to kindle new material. This would (like life) become eternal if itdid not use up materials quicker than other processes can make them. In the same way organisms assimilate more than they consume, but they do not turn all they use to assimilation; energy remains over by which the process performs something. This work- product controls the excessive assimilation which otherwise would come to an end by not having sufficient material to assimilate. He thus regards the more complex processes of life as essentially a radiation of assimilation, which, although not identical with combustion, is similar to it, the load which it carries favoring its continuity. This radiation, load, or work-product becomes directed, of course, by natural selection, to keep up a supply of food, primarily by moving the assimilating mass. Performance of function over and above assimilation is just as much a condition of continuous assimilation as assimilation itself is of performance. On the other hand there comes to be an inverse relationship between growth and production (within limits), and we have capacities which, although they use up material, do not in themselves increase assimilation. The course of development consists in properly directing this work-product.* 1The proper growth of the higher centres favors permanence. Idiots age much earlier and die younger than normal people. Too rapid growth seems connected with this. Geoffroy St. Hiliare (Hist. des Nom., 17th ed., Vol. I, p 197) has given full particulars of a boy of six who was five feet high and broad in proportion. His growth was so rapid that it could almost be seen. He had a beard, looked like a man of thirty, and had every indication of perfect puberty. He hadafull, deep bass voice, and his extraordinary strength fitted him for all country work. At five he could carry any distance three measures of rye weighing 84 lbs., and at six years and a few months he could easily carry on his shoulders bur- 72 SCOTT : This so farrepresents. merely a continuous productability of function in connection with assimilation. But a producta- bility which is stored up and discharged by an outer stimu- Jus of environment will be much more economical, and will give rise to what we find as reflex excitability. When this reflex work- product dominates, according to circumstances, function will sometimes be greater and sometimes less. If under these conditions assimilation keeps on continuously, there must sometimes be an overplus, sometimes a balance, and sometimes by excessive function death, and thus elimina- tion. To avoid this last, it is necessary that assimilation should depend upon use or upon astimulus which use calls forth. From the psychical side this stimulus is recognized as hunger. This kind of process where stimulus is an indispensable factor, is more special and limited than the more general pro- cess of assimilation plus movement, ete., but has character- istics which favor it greatly in the struggle for existence. ‘¢ Connected with the most complete self-regulation of func- tioning is the greatest saving of material, while those parts always according to their use are strengthened and grow, the unused degenerate and the material for their subsistence is saved. 'This kind of process unites the greatest economy with the highest functioning of the whole, but at the cost of the, independence of the parts.’’! Senescence becomes thus a result of differentiation, in which the parts exist merely on account of the function which they perform for the whole. The senescing organs wither up like state officials after pen- sioning, although they may linger on as pensioners for a long time, and may even descend in this condition from genera- tion to generation, a fact which often allows of fresh starts in development. During the course of a life-time the organ- ism moves from a more general, more easily impressible condi- tion to one which is more perfectly mechanized. ‘Through a long period it becomes, through the continuous working of a given stimulus, more completely adapted to itself, and also more differentiated, and thereby more stable, so that an al- ways increasing opposition is formed to the additional de- velopment of new forms and characteristics.’’? dens weighing 150 lbs. But he did not become a giant, as every one expected. He soon got feeble, deformed, his intellectual faculties did not develop. He became idiotic and soon died. Bébé, the court fool of King Stanislas, had all the attributes of decrepitude at 23 years. 1<“Der Kampf der Theile im Organismus,’’ p. 224. 2 Op. cit., p. 201. OLD AGE AND DEATH. ve 9 Dantec,! while opposing himself to Roux in many points, really offers a simpler form of Roux’s conception of over- compensation of used material. According to him function and assimilation are not to be separated at all. He evidently rejects the ordinary analogy of a machine capable of wearing out or running down (fatigue), and regards the activity of every cell or plastid as a chemical combination in which the substances which increase the growth of the plastid are added to the living matter. During the same reaction, however,there . may be-by-products formed, which, until their removal from the neighborhood, stand in the way of future reaction (fatigue, senility, etc.). Dantec also simplifies the question of death by emphasizing the fact that what dies is always the cell or plastid, or a number of them. The death of a many-celled in- dividual is nothing additional or independent of this. Longevity and Natural Selection. Whether senility or death is ultimately the most deeply-rooted in the vital pro- cess, there seems to be no doubt that in the case of man as compared with the animals most closely related to him, the last of the old age period at least, has come in as a survival, which is correlated with, if it does not owe its existence in the struggle for existence to the greater development of the higher moral and sympathetic qualities of the race.? Other reasons, however, have prepared the way, or assisted in this result. Among many of the lower animals a long life is fre- quently a necessity for the species, when it is associated with decreased fertility or lack of ability to raise ofispring. Eagles, for example, live to about 60, but owing to the dan- gers to which the eggs and young are exposed from weasels, mice, etc.,? it takes about this time to successfully raise a pair. Many plants and animals, on the other hand, make up for their short lives by great fertility. This distinction, it is evident, is only of value when comparing species, and is of very little significance for the individual. With some ani- mals, as with man, where the period for raising the young is long, it is found that life is normally increased to this extent beyond the actual sexual period.* But beyond the immediate value for the offspring, in man at least there is an added value in old age for the tribe and 1 Rev. Phil., Feb., Mar., 1896. mor. MM. ‘Humphrey, M. D., “Old Age,’’ 1889, p. 8. . §> Weissmann, ‘‘The Duration of Life,” p. 13. 4 With man the period of growth is variously put, and is actually different in different peoples and classes, the higher classes of the highest races not ceasing to grow physically till about 30. If the grand climacteric be placed at 50 (often earlier), this would give 80 years as the normal life-time, the latter 30 years of which is held in fee for the support and education of the young. 74 SCOTT : race. Dr. Gascom! points out that personal, family and national prosperity and affluence are increased by longevity, and thinks that ‘‘longevity, peace and liberty would bless all the world with abundance.’’? In early races old men were the convenient and portable libraries, offering a means of ready reference to past experience. If they were not actually the leaders in times of strain and stress, they were very generally the counselors, the prophets, and the seers. But while the practical results of old age have probably been favorable, this cannot be expected to have been foreseen or calculated upon. Unreasoning sympathy, an extension of the love for wife and child, has been the deepest motive power. This even becomes intellectualized abnormally in a kind of fetichism, instead of resulting in a calculation on the greatest good for the greatest number,which, despite the pos- sibility of exceptions of individuals like Bentham and J. S. Mill, has never yet become a motive for masses of men. With certain tribes of South Australia, for example, itis taboo to catch or eat certain animals until they (the Australians) reach an advanced age. They are convinced that the most evil consequences would result to themselves individually if this rule should be broken. These animals, it is observed, arejust those which are the easiest to catch, are perfectly wholesome and nutritious, and thus the best adapted for old people’s use. A large proportion of the motives which govern our treatment of the old to-day are really only more refined, al- though sometimes equally superstitious, and perhaps equally beneficial fetichisms. From the point of view of natural selection to the question whether old age is to be regarded as an abnormal phenome- non on account of the small number of people who attain it, as Montaigne suggested,* or whether the most of men should naturally reach a much greater age,+ that men do not die, but kill themselves, it might be replied that the present condition where only a few reach anelderly age may be the most serviceable for the race in its present state. As G. M. Beard points out,® the majority of people in all lands are muscle-workers rather than brain-workers, and quotes Dr. Mitchell as having shown that if of the population of Scot- land a few. thousands were destroyed or degenerated and their places unsupplied, the nation would fall downwards to 1 Prize essay on ‘‘ Longevity ’’ written for Assurance Co., Boston, 1869. fe YU 3 Essay on ‘‘Age.”? 4100-150, as Flourens held possible. > “¢American Nervousness,’’ 1881, p. 97. OLD AGE AND DEATH. 75 barbarism. But if these do exist, a superfluity may be un- necessary. Leaders, prophets, seers, are in the way if in too great a number, and it may be better for men to ‘kill themselves ”’ in effective service, even if not of the rarest kind, than to go on to an old age full of nothing but selfish- ness, weakness and discontent. On the other hand, the results of Humphrey, which show that old age is correlated with large families, lead us to ex- pect a gradual increase in old age and just’ among those stocks which have been successful in serving the basal al- truistic functions of the race. The more radiated altruisms also seem favored in the struggle for longevity. Dr. G. M. Beard,” believes he has established from statistics that brain-working classes live longer than muscle- working classes, and ‘‘that the greatest and hardest brain-workers of his- tory have lived longer on the average than brain-workers of ordinary ability and industry.’’ Donaldson* shows from the present admittedly meagre statistics that the curve of brain weight rises with eminent men to 65 years, while it falls from 55 in other classes. Clergymen are particularly long- lived, while born criminals and idiots age quickly and die young.* Neurasthenics,® generally of an overdeveloped type, are long-lived, although not prolific, as if they represented the last effort of goodstock. When these distinctions depend upon choice of professions, it has been usual to assume that the character of the occupa- tion exercises the determining influence, although it may just as reasonably be held that the naturally long-lived, some- times by a sort of instinct, as Dr. Gascom® thinks, choose professions where rewards are not obtained till late in life. Farr’ shows that the greatest commercial value of a laborer is at 25, that of a professional man about 40. As Beard says:5 ‘* With muscle-workers there is but little accumula- tion and only a limited increase of reward; and in old age, after their strength has begun to decline, they must, with in- creasing expense, work even harder than before. The literary or scientific worker goes on from strength to Strength, until what was at 25 impossible, and at 30 dif- ficult, at 35 becomes easy and at 40 a pastime.’’ The oppor- 1 Op. cit., p. 40. ? Paiiesoua Nervousness,’’? chap. on Old eae! p. 195. 3 «Growth of the Brain,’”’ p. 324. : ee “homme criminel.” Strahan, ‘‘Suicide and Insanity,”’ p.1 Beard, Krafft-Ebing et al. cit. 6 7 Vital vain for 1885.”’ 8 Op. cit., p. 2 76 SCOTT : tunity to choose a profession also is generally associated with wealth and thrift, which represents ancestral effort, and increases with old age. The correlation is just as marked in one way of looking at it as the other. Both factors have probably had their due effect. Involution. It must be admitted that the phenomenon of involution entails ultimately a general decay and weakening of most of the physiological functions. Height and weight de- crease. Locomotion and digestion are impaired. ‘The cir- culation is feeble, the temperature frequently lower. In many cases the blood becomes uremic and venous. The arteries harden or the muscular coats undergo fatty degenera- tion. ‘The testicles become dense and decrease in volume and weight, although spermatozoids are found in half the eases to the latest age,4 some observers, however,? de- scribing them as weak and languishing. The prostate fre- quently hypertrophies. The ovaries become entirely ob- literated, and the vagina sometimes disappears. In thebrain the cells atrophy and many of the associational fibres disap- pear, while the connective tissue hypertrophies and takes their place, or more or less hydrocephalus efiects the same result. Ottolenghi® finds that sensibility to pain increases toward adult life and diminishes with old age, but that with adults sen- sibility varies more with social station and grade of degenera- tion than with age. In morbid cases melancholia* and demen- tia, in line with the general lack of susceptibility to acute diseases, is more frequent proportionally to other insanities than in earlier years. All the magnificent and touching poetry of the last chapter of Ecclesiastes is abundantly sup- ported by the details of modern science. As to the order in which this involution occurs, a great variety of opinions. has been advanced. Reveille-Parise® thought that deficient oxidation connected with lessened vascularity of the respiratory organs was the first sign of failure, thus with the ancients making the breath (spirdtus animus, etc.) the fount of life. Stephens (‘‘Long Life’’) onthe other hand suggests that excessive oxidation is the proximate cause of senescence, showing itself in dryness of the skin and wasting of the organs generally. The theories of Lendl, Dantec, Delage, already referred to, in regarding failure to 'Duplay, Arch. gen. de Med., 1843, 1855. * Reveille- Parise, ‘‘Traité de la Viellesse,”” Paris, 1853. “Das Gefiihl und das Alter,” Zetischrift fir Psy. u. Phys. der Sinnes- organe, Jan., 1896. ; ‘Sixty-seven per cent. according to Fiirstner, Arch. fiir Psy., pp. 65. > Op. cit., p. 36. OLD AGE AND DEATH. ‘er 4 carry on a chemical process as the ultimate cause, involve respiration as only one of the necessary conditions. Ham- elin thought the continuance of ossification, especially as af- fecting the thorax, as the essential point of departure. Cazalis, followed by many others in more recent times, regarded arterio-sclerosis with its consequences of renal and liver dis- ease, cirrhosis, toxic blood, and various kinds of apoplexies, as the starting point of senility. Bouchard thinks that old age begins with a failure in nutrition, and traces diabetes, gout, obesity, etc., to this source. This, as Andre! points out, is hardly a distinction, the question rather being, where does nutrition begin to fail? In answer to this Tilt,? basing his opinion on a large collection of cases, refers the initial failure to the sympathetic ganglia which innervate and con- trol the blood vessels of the great viscera, an involution which is first shown in the reproductive functions. Follow- ing Haller, he regards the sympathetic as an off-shoot of the cerebro-spinal system, an opinion which is supported by the facts of recent embryology. This failure in the sympathetic shows itself about the time of the grand climactericin general malaise, sleeplessness or excessive sleep, blushings, slight nervous troubles, with their psychical correlations of uneasi- ness, irritability, slight melancholia. On the other hand the more serious nervous troubles, according to his care- fully elaborated statistics, are much more frequent earlier in life. From an estimation of the cases admitted dur- ing ten years to the Bethlem Hospital for the Insane, he shows that liability to insanity for women is great- est at 36 to 40, and diminishes from 40 to 55.3 He sup- ports this by the fact that deaths from brain disease, as shown by the Registrar General’s reports, are most fre- quent. in women from 20 to 40, results in accordance with the statistics of Haslam, Pinol, Esquirol, and Foedéré. With men, the period of greatest liability is from 40 to 60. Deaths from all kinds of nervous diseases are only 113% of the whole, about half of which are due to infant eclamp- sia, and occur about 5 or 6. Of the remaining moiety, it is to be remembered that a large proportion, more than half, are directly due to arterial degeneration, and not pri- marily an affection of that portion of the brain which sub- serves the higher psychical functions,°® while here, too, are to 1“T? Hygiene des Viellards,’’ Paris, 1890, p. 36. 2 “Change of Life,’’ 1882. 3 Op. cit., p. 115. ; BGT. as Curve given by Althaus, ‘‘Diseases of the Nervous Sys- em, oe) p. 78 SCOTT : be found the cases of phylogenetic degeneration evidently not due to the influence of old age. By another way, however, through the support of the cere- bro-spinal system to the sympathetic, the former may in- directly affect the innervation, the lack of which results in arterial aneurisms, lack of elasticity, ete.1_ Hammond, for ex- ample,” points out that traumatic lesions of the marrow are complicated with functional trouble of the cervical sym- pathetic. ‘‘ These cases go to show that the cervical sympa- thetic draws a great part of its nervous action from the Superior segment of the spinal cord.’’ Claude Bernard® showed that if an animal was debilitated, excision of the cervical sympathetic resulted in mucous suppuration of the bronchi, etc., a trouble which Humphrey* notes as one of the commonest affections of old age. The value of the tone of the cerebro-spinal system to the height of the blood-pres- sure, proximately mediated by the sympathetic, is shown by Owsjannikow,° who demonstrated that removing layer after layer of the trunk causes a fall of manometrical pressure be- fore the pons (circulation centre) has been reached. Gley® sup- plements this by showing that cutting off the medulla causes a fall in pressure, cutting out the spinal cord a greater fall, after which, however, contraction of the blood vessels was still possible in reaction to the injection of certain chemical substances, thus proving the partial independence of the sympathetic as well as the support afforded by the spinal system. The importance of this connection is witnessed by many more purely psychological phenomena. Mosso (‘‘La Peur,’’ e. g.) has made special studies on blushing (less prevalent in age) and cerebral circulation. Careful experiments with the plethysmograph in many psychological laboratories have shown the almost instantaneous influence of psychical im- pressions on the circulation of various parts of the body. In face of death by starvation, the most typical of all forms of death, it has been abundantly demonstrated that while all the other organs of the body gradually atrophy, the heart, the kidneys, and more especially the brain, remain exempt. *The smaller vessels of the brain itself are not generally sup- posed to be supplied with sympathetic fibres, which, if a fact, would only result in making the strain of a weakening sympathetic fall primarily upon the other organs. > “Diseases of the Nervous System,’’ 1890, p. 866. 3 “Path. du Sys. Nerv.,” T. II., p. 535. 4 Op. cit. * Quoted by Meynert, ‘‘Psychiatry,”’ trans. by Sachs, 1885, p. 206. ° Arch. de Phys. n. et p., Brown-Sequard, 1894, p. 202. OLD AGE AND DEATH. 79 As Mosso says,! ‘‘ the last overflow of the vital material of the body is sent by the last heart-beat to the brain.’”? He points out that increased nervous stimulability of the brain in face of starvation would be a favoring factor in natural selec- tion. The flaring up of dormant faculties just before death is, no doubt, an expression of a similar condition. ? With the approach of old age there seems to be plenty of cases which follow an order of involution which is not descend- ing. Muscular power, for example, generally fails before the capacity to direct the labor of others. Humphrey, from re- ports of 900 cases observed by medical and scientific men, notes ‘‘ how many of the very aged are in good possession of their mental faculties, taking a keen interest in passing events, forming a clear judgment upon them, and full of thought for the present and future welfare of others.’’? Even in centenarians ‘‘ the brain held out as well or better than the other organs.’’* In green old age (age de retour) there can hardly be any doubt that the intellectual qualities are even relatively improved. Balfour,® following Beneke® and other anatomists, points out a rather remarkable adapta- tion which favors the brain, namely, that while the other arteries of the body may be completely calcified, the internal carotids and vertebral, which feed the brain, normally re- main soft and yielding. Towards old age also, the heart normally hypertrophies, beats faster, and correlated with these changes the blood itself actually increases in hemoglobin, and when these changes do not occur at the proper age the whole physical and mental health suffers. Heart stimulants, e. g., digitalis and strychnine, the latter of which at least acts primarily on the nervous system, are found highly successful, often changing at this period of life the anemic and dejected individual into a healthy and active old man. The most commonly repeated difficulty of either the natural or the arti- ficial adaptation for old age, appears to be degenerative changes in the internal arterial coats (which may be primarily caused by lack of innervation). These either by coming off in pieces and forming plugs, or by pocketing in weak spots (miliary aneurisms, e. g.), give rise to hemiplegias and apo- plexies of various kinds. The maxim of Cazalis, ‘‘a man is the age of his arteries,’’ although by no means applicable to every case, seems to be supported by greater numbers than the descending degeneration theory of involution. 1 **Old Age and its Psychoses,’’ Hack Tuke’s Dict., p. 869. 6 *“Kompendium der Psychiatrie,’’ Leipsic, 1883, p. 367. 7 Jour. of Mental Science, London, Jan., Apr., 1894. 8 “Ueber Dementia Senilis,’’? 1895. °*Lombroso, ‘‘L’homme criminel,” p. 569. OLD AGE AND DEATH. 81 complete form of the general nervous activity, and that the body, as far as it is an organism, is so mainly because there is thus brought into immediate connection the extremest functions of the organism. The human body is, first of all, an organism, and the organs of relation are thus in normal cases the most permanent and enduring. Despite these facts, however, since the days of Bichat and earlier, there have not been wanting authors, principally alienists, to hold that the failure of old age begins normally at.the top. In the present times Ribot, Ross and Mercier have adopted this theory. Mercier! regards the essen- tial phenomena of old age as a cutting off of the most recent and most highly developed brain layers. Old age is like a frost-blight, which nips the buds the latest grown. He and Ribot? also seem not to distinguish very clearly between the phylogenetic development, re- peated and appropriated by the individual, and the mere repetition of actions in time in as far as this refers to old age. Memory of recent events no doubt fails in old age. But what evidence have we for supposing that these acts of memory presuppose any new brain growth, such as would be necessary if we are to use a simile like that of the budding tree, or the upper and lower brain levels of Mercier’s theory? ‘The really most recently grown structure (like the city which has originated from the surrounding country, used as a storage depot and an organ of control) may be just as permanent as any other, or more so, except under the strain of distinctly degenerative (phylogenetic) causes. No doubt in an ultimate sense we must admit the complete co-determi- nation of structure and function, but this does not excuse us for running away with crude ideas of structure, wholly de- rived from the limited range of present observation. In brain matters particularly, our knowledge of function is vastly ahead of that of structure. Memory, it must be remembered, is no mere partial faculty. It is really a fundamental quality of all tissue. And with the loss of memory that comes from hemiplegia and similar morbid causes, which give the greatest number of cases of aphasia upon which the Strongest argument rests for degenerative senile involu- tion, we have frequently a portion of the brain entirely destroyed, so that no vital quality, memory or otherwise is left behind. Where this focalized lesion attacks the lan- guage centres, there are no doubt many cases in which ina 1“Sanity and Insanity.”’ 2 ** Diseases of Memory.”’ 3 “Memory in Disease,’’ Strahan, e. g. 82 SCOTT : general way the degeneration begins at the top of these cen- tres; but there are others where this does not seem to be the order followed, and besides this there are many Cases, as Bastian! points out, ‘‘where aphasia has been most complete, but the mental powers have been well preserved.’’ The num- ber of cases, too, where the left brain (the centre of language) is affected do not seem to be the greatest. Brown-Sequard found, of 121 cases of hemiplegia, the left brain was affected in twenty-four, the right in ninety-seven cases. ? The normal failure of memory, so-called, in old people is really a failure of recollection of certain events in preference to certain others. This may not be due to descending degen- eration. Recollection, while it presupposes memory, is yet something more. In the first place it depends directly upon blood circulation and drops out in sleep. Here it must be admitted that Mercier has the courage of his conviction, and is consistent with himself in saying that sleep itself is a form of dementia, indeed the ‘‘last and most complete stage of dementia known as coma,’’? an extreme which surely indi- cates the necessity for more careful distinctions. Old people may dwell upon youth and early married life because it was their happiest period, while, as far as we have any proof, this is the period of the formation of the highest layers, the latest buds, ete. The only way, if we are to ap- ply recapitulation, is to compare memories, 2. e., capacities formed in early childhood with those later on while still in the course of recapitulated phylogenetic development. Be- yond this period there exists a more purely ontogenetic development which has not had the same necessity for be- ing so thoroughly established in philogeny, to which the cri- terion of race development does not apply to the same degree. Peculiarities of the individual, or of his immediate ancestry, aS Roux and Darwin mention, come out more strongly. These of course may form the new material for selection and may result from a new creation, or from a pathological condition or decay. Geddes, indeed, is of the opinion that all sports or variations may be originally pathological. The beginning and continuance of senescence may thus be the most important of all the periods of life for the origination of fresh development. But in any case we are not in a posi- tion to apply the recapitulation theory. Instead of a fresh budding of growth, the recollection of events may just as well be compared to the sending of a train, 1“ Paralysis from Brain Disease,’’ p. 198. *Quoted by Bastian. Op. cit., p. 209. 3 Op. cit., p. 299. OLD AGE AND DEATH. 83 for example, between New York and Chicago. That the train does not pass is no proof that the track is destroyed. There may be at the time or for short notice (the inelasticity of age) no coal or no crew. Sono doubt in imperfect recollection we have a lowered state of the physical organism, which is sim- ilar to, and perhaps caused by, greater slowness and imper- fection of digestion and circulation as well as by general physical decay, but which is no proof that there is greater structural or permanent functional impairment of the higher brain-paths than of others, or of the brain itself as compared with the rest of the body. Here early writers, Bichat for example, seem to have initi- ated a faulty way of looking at the brain, in drawing so strict a distinction between the animal and the vegetative functions. Careful measurements now show us that in sleep, as in other lowered functional conditions, such as old age, the vegetative as well as the psychical functions are materially lessened, and we have no right to regard the plastids of the brain, which only more specially subserve animal or psychical functions, as not being just as vegetative and just as much organs of digestion as any others in the body. We have here not a question of specialized vegetative functions of the really living proto- plasm. The plastids of the stomach, for example, are as capable of being starved as any other, since nervous stimulus is necessary for their activity, and the food which they use is furnished by the blood as for any other organ. The body, although in itself an imperfect organism, is, in fact, as Roux insists, a collection of parts which are them- selves again imperfect organisms. The vegetative functions, meaning by this simply the basal qualities of assimilation and digestion, belong to every plastid. Among these, however, a struggle for existence takes place, the results of which are more marked in old age than in any other period, but for the just estimation of which we must not confine ourselves to any one class of phenomena, and more especially when these are of an admittedly morbid, 7. e., phylogenetically degenerative character. The truth seems to be that in the struggle for existence among the various organs, through the course of a life-time, certain of these, partly through hereditary strength, and partly through a greater compensation due to exercise, or for their opponents either over or under use, obtain an ad- vantage over the others, which, when it becomes so marked as to deplete some other necessary organ, results at last in debility and death. The organism in old age thus loses its power of self-regulation and, as Johannes Muller! recognized, 1“ Phystologie,’? Coblenz, 1844, Bd. II, S. 767. 6 84 SCOTT : is to be compared ‘‘ more to an ingenious mechanism than to that basal form of the organic whole which produces the mechanism from itself, and makes it capable of compensat- ing for its loss. Therefore in old age a very small outer strain is able to bring to an end the whole, as is the case with a mechanism.”’ Even when the good adjustment and balance of the several parts which are necessary to a healthy old age exists, ‘‘a time comes at length when in the course of the descending devel- opmental processes, the several components of the machine, slowly and much, though equally, weakened, fail to answer to one another’s call, which is also weakened ; a time when the nervous, the circulatory and the respiratory organs have not force enough to keep one another going; when the wheels stop rather than are stopped, and a developmental or phys- iological death terminates the developmental or physiological decay. The old man who had gone to bed, apparently much as usual, is found dead in the morning, as though life’s engine had been unable to repair itself in sleep sufficiently to bear the withdrawal of the stimulus of wakefulness. Or some ex- ertion may be followed by too great exhaustion. Dr. Willis, the attendant upon King George III, at the age of 90, after a walk of four miles to see a friend, sat down in his chair and went to sleep, or was thought to be asleep, but he did not wake again. Or some slight scarcely noticed excitement may have the same result. The three hundred Lacedemonians chosen by Leonidas were all of them fathers with sons living. ® When ‘the human plant had flowered,’’? death was not regarded asa shame. This may be compared with the ex- perience of H. B., pp. 90f. The sexual life, which, as we saw underlies and punctuates the other periods of life, is of very great importance for the last. Not only by the social ties which its proper function calls into being, thus developing the higher sexual radiations of love and sympathy, but on the lower ranges of physiology as well, does the adequate discharge at their proper period of these great hereditary emotions tend to produce a healthy and happy old age. The returnof the ghost of the sexual life after it should be properly laid, is even more trouble- some and injurious than is the reappearance of our friends or enemies. Here, as well as in the face of the immediate ob- servation of death, is the cathartic rather than the repressive method calculated to produce the best effect. When the sexual functions have been denied or insufficiently radiated 1 Op. cit., Bd. II, p. 330. * Bastian, op. cit., p. 331. ° Cf. Renouf, ‘“‘ The Religion of Ancient Egypt,”’ p. 148. * Amelineau, ‘‘ La Morale Egyptienne.”’ Cf. also Ecclesiastes. *Tegg, ‘* The Last Act,”’ p. 32. °Renouf, op. cit., p. 148. OLD AGE AND DEATH. 121 (and their normal gratification is the easiest and most natural condition of their radiation), there is plenty of evi- dence to show the danger of a recrudescence in old age of the sexual passion in morbid forms of the most unhealthy type.1 Many senile exhibitionists, perverts, etc., as well as Clouston’s? old maid’s insanity, come under this rubric. The feeling of guilt, just the obverse of the demand for justice which is such a strong motive in the longing for im- mortality, is shown nowhere more frequently than in connection with aberrations of the sexual life. The develop- mental insanity of pubescence connected with failure of the sexual life, is frequently marked by excessive feeling of guilt and often by fear, sometimes of damnation. Many cases of senile dementia also present this character.? With the dropping out of the sexual life and with its failure to lay up treasure for itself in the higher regions of the brain, there may thus be either recrudescence of the lower, or complete loss of all the emotions of love, either generative or regenera- tive, and their substitution by feelings of guilt and fear. The slighter phenomena of the grand climacteric, the in- crease of fears, disposition to starts, flushings, burnings, _ kleptomania, are significant here. When this period is safely passed, however, it often results in a wider, more intellectual, if not a deeper interest in the race. Many have noticed the number of women at this age who fill lecture halls, conduct meetings, and push causes of every kind. The history of the idea of immortality as contained in phallicism and other ancient religions, bears the strongest evidence as to the connection of the ideas of sex and death. To conclude, as biologically death and sex come in to- gether, so in the higher psychical life their irradiations are the most closely associated. Sex and reproduction, first a means of overcoming death, sacrifices in doing so the con- tinuity of individual life, but intensifies it by the whole course of evolution. So in the soul-life, love is greater than death, not mystically, but simply as a matter of fact, while the con- ception of death serves to intensify the psychical life, and give a foil and sense of earnestness* to all our enthusiasms. This great background thought has framed not only the deep- est love, but also the greatest productions of art, religion and 1 Schopenhauer went so far as to say that pederasty was allowable for old age. 2“ Mental Diseases.”’ 3A number of cases of this kind were observed by the present La at the clinics of Dr. Meyer of the Worcester Hospital for the nsane. 4Cf. Hawthorne’s ‘‘ The Marble Fawn.” 122 SCOTT. philosophy. God and immortality have risen in obedience to the infinite yearnings with which it stirs the soul. What- ever ontological truth may lie behind these ideas, and that is a question which we have not entered upon here, it remains for us to use these great ideas to the full as the psy- chological functions which we have attempted to show they are, and to bring thus into the here and now of one life-time the best and highest realization of which it is at present capa- ble. In any case the deep life of love, with the care for off- spring, and the natural and spiritual continuity or immortality which they ensure, is the tidal wave upon which all these ideas are upborne, and which, showing itself before maturity and lin- gering often in its highest radiations into age, in its best func- tion and discharge unites into one whole the different periods of life. The principal danger to be avoided, is hardening into a blind fetichism radiations, which are only vital as they recognize the source from which they spring. In the best conditions, however, these radiations help to harmonize the different periods of life. Youth, maturity, old age, are the sub-major, major and minor chords, of which the eternal dominant note is love. It is impossible for me to close this paper without ac- knowledging in the warmest way the continued help and sympathy of Pres. G. Stanley Hall in the prosecution of this study, the subject of which was suggested to me in the course of one of his lectures, while his whole treatment of ancient philosophy and Christianity during the present year has been of the greatest service in its elaboration. To Drs. Hodge, Sanford, Burnham and Chamberlain, I am also much indebted for many kind suggestions concerning the literature in their fields. As to the indispensable cooperation of the many friends who have answered the questionnaire, I have already spoken.