Lecture 1.

“Old Age and the Changes Incident to it,” Brit. Med. J., March 9, 1885.

“Old Age,” Brit. Med., Oct 2, 1891.

“Senility, Premature Senility, and Longevity,” Med. Jour., New York, July 10, 1915.

“Nature of Old Age and of Cancer,” Brit. Med. J., Dec. 27, 1913.

“Degeneration, Senescence, and New Growth,” J. Med. Research, vol. 33, 1918, p. 485.

The New Pathology of Syphilis, Harvey Lectures 1917–19, p. 67.

“Die Psychosen des Rückbildungs- und Greisenalters,” Handbuch der Psychiatrie, Spezieller Teil, 5 Abteilung, Leipzig, 1912.

“Senile Mentality,” Inter. Clin., vol. 4, 1916, p. 48.

“Some Clinical Indications of Senility,” Inter. Clin., vol. 2, 1914, p. 93.

Old Age: Its Care and Treatment in Health and Disease, London, 1913, 312 pp.

Old Age Deferred: The Causes of Old Age and Its Postponement by Hygienic and Therapeutic Measures, Philadelphia, 1911, 572 pp.

“The Medical Significance of Old Age,” Med. Press and Circ., London, May 20, 1914.

“The Delay of Old Age and the Alleviation of Senility,” Jour. Amer. Med. Assn., July 15, 1905.

“Centenarians and Nonagenarians,” Med. Rec., Feb. 15, 1913.

“Ancient and Modern Theories of Age,” Maryland Med. Jour., vol. 49, Feb., 1906.

Fads of on Old Physician (Sequel to Plea for a Simpler Life), London, 1897.

“The Conservation of Energy in Those of Advancing Years,” Pop. Sci. Mo., 1903.

“Evidences of Full Maturity and Early Decline,” Pop. Sci. Mo., 1917, p. 411.

Über Altern und Sterben, Wien, 1913, 33 pp.

See his articles in Sci. Mo., March-Sept., 1921.

The Germ Plasm, 1893, p. 198 et seq.

See his Essays Upon Heredity and Other Biological Problems, vol. i, 1889, especially Chaps. I, “The Duration of Life,” and III, “Life and Death.”

In his able and brilliant discussion on “The Biology of Death,” Scientific Monthly, March, 1921, p. 202.

American Handbook of Physiology, 1897, p. 883.

Mildly challenging Weismann’s non-inherited ability of acquired qualities is Irving Fisher’s “Impending Problems of Eugenics,” Sci. Mo., Sept., 1921.

The Nature of Man, 1904, 309 pp. and The Prolongation of Life, 1907, 343 pp.

See a valuable but unprinted thesis of W. T. Sanger, a pupil of mine, “The Study of Senescence,” Clark University, 1915.

In her fascinating life of her husband, “Life of Elie Metchnikoff,” (1920) the widow of Metchnikoff describes him in his last days as anxious “that his end, which seemed premature at first sight, did not contradict his theories but had deep causes, such as heredity, and the belated introduction of a rational diet, which he began to follow only at fifty-three.” He was very anxious that his example of serenity in the face of death should be encouraging and comforting. He had no illusions and knew for a long time that he was living only from day to day. He speculated whether the end would come to-day or to-morrow and had several specific “death sensations,” pledging his wife to hold his hand when the end came. He was interested in the completion of her biography of him, begged for enough pantopon to bring an eternal sleep, directed his friend how to perform his autopsy and what to look for in the different organs, provided for his cremation and the final disposition of his ashes, etc. All was done as he wished, with no funeral and no speeches, flowers, or invocations, and his ashes now lie in an urn, as he directed, in the library of the Pasteur Institute.

The Problem of Age, Growth, and Death; A study of Cytomorphosis, 1908, 280 pp.

See his monumental textbook, A Laboratory Textbook of Embryology, 1903, 380 pp.

Senescence and Rejuvenescence, 1915, 481 pp.

For our purpose his views are best summed up in his The Organism as a Whole from a Physiochemical Viewpoint, 1916, 379 pp. See more specifically his “Natural Death and Duration of Life,” Science, 1919, p. 578 et seq.

Prof. W. J. V. Osterhout, “On the Nature of Life and Death,” Science, April 15, 1921, thinks that we can measure by quantitative methods such fundamental conceptions as vitality, injury, recovery, and death, by electrical resistance, which, he thinks, is an excellent index of what is normal condition. He believes that this holds for both plants and animals, for all agents known to be injurious change the electrical resistance at once. He also thinks this resistance proportional to a substance he believes he found and decomposed by a series of consecutive reactions and that on this basis we can write an equation that permits us to predict the course of the death process under various conditions, so that we can say that at a certain stage it is one-fourth or one-half completed. Stated chemically, the normal life process consists of a series of reactions in which a substance O is broken down into S, and this in turn breaks down into A, M, B, and so on. “Under normal conditions M is formed as readily as it is decomposed and this results in a constant condition of the electrical resistance and other properties of the cell. When, however, conditions are changed so that M is decomposed more rapidly than it is formed, the electrical resistance decreases” and other properties are simultaneously altered. Thus death results from a disturbance in the relative rates of the reactions that constantly go on.

Sci. Mo., Aug., 1921.

Sci. Mo., Apr., 1921.

Genevieve Grandcourt, “The Immortality of Tissues: Its Bearing on the Study of Old Age,” Sci. Am., Oct. 20, 1912. Also “What is Old Age?: Carrel’s Research on the Mechanism of Physical Growth,” Sci. Am., Nov. 23, 1918.

C. Pozzi, “Vie Manifestée Permanente de La Tissue,” La Preusse Médicale, p. 532.

Alexis Carrel, “Present Condition of a Strain of Connective Tissue Twenty-eight Months Old,” Jour. Exper. Med., July 1, 1914, and “Contributions to the Study of the Mechanism of the Growth of Connective Tissue,” Jour. Exper. Med., Sept., 1913. See also Science, vol. 36, 1912, p. 789.

“Geschlechtstrieb und echt sekundäre Geschlechtsmerkmale als Folge der Innersekretorischen Funktion der Keimdrüsen,” Zeit. f. Physiologie, Sept., 1910.

“Pubertätsdrüsen und Zwitterbildung,” Archiv. f. Entwicklung der Organismen, vol. 42, 1916, pp. 307–332.

“Erhöhte Wirkungen der inneren Sekretion bei Hypertrophie der Pubertätsdrüsen,” Archiv. f. Entwicklungsmechanik der Organismen, vol. 42, 1916, pp. 490–507.

“Klima und Mannbarkeit,” Archiv. f. Entwicklungsmechanik der Organismen, vol. 46, 1920, p. 391.

“Verjüngung durch Experimentelle Neubelebung der alternden Pubertäts Drüse,” Archiv. f. Entwicklungsmechanik der Organismen, vol. 46, 1920, Part 4.

“Steinach’s Forschungen über Entwicklung, Beherrschung, und Wandlung der Pubertät,” Ergebnisse der Inneren Medizin und Kinderheilkunde, 1919, vol. 17, pp. 295–398.

“Eugene Steinach’s Work on Rejuvenation,” N. Y. Med. J., vol. 112, 1920, p. 612.

“Steinach’s Rejuvenation Operation,” Central. f. Chirurgie, Sept. 11, 1920.

“Further Observations on Sex-Gland Implantation” Jour. Am. Med. Assn., vol. 72, 1919, p. 396.

H. E. Goodale of the Massachusetts Experiment Station, Amherst, says (Science, Oct. 23, 1914, p. 594.): “A brown Leghorn male was castrated completely when twenty-four days of age, and the ovaries from two brood sisters, cut in several pieces, were placed beneath the skin and also in the abdominal cavity. At the date of writing the bird is as obviously female as its brood sisters. Skilled poultrymen have called it a pullet. While it has all the female characteristics, there can be little doubt, from the scars still visible as well as other things, that it was a male.” It is not likely that its peculiar individuality was feminized owing to constitutional condition. The author believes it was feminized by the implanted ovaries in similar fashion to the rats and guinea pigs of Steinach.

Life: A Study of the Means of Restoring Vital Energy and Prolonging Life, New York, 1920, 160 p.

The Glands Regulating Personality: A study of the glands of internal secretion in relation to the types of human nature. New York, MacMillan, 1921. 300 p.

Book X, Epigram 23 D.

Spoon River Anthology.

Morale: The Supreme Standard of Life and Conduct, New York, D. Appleton Co., 1920. 376 pp.

Belief in God and Immortality: A Psychological, Anthropological, and Statistical Study, Boston, 1906.

See my Adolescence, vol. ii, p. 113 et seq.

“The Psychology of the Teacher,” Ped. Sem., vol. 24, p. 531 et seq.

See Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, sec. 3.

Monologen.

Ethics, Book II, Chaps. 3 and 6 and Book IV, Chap. 3.

In the last few paragraphs I have, thanks to the courtesy of the editor of the Atlantic Monthly, freely used material from my anonymous article on “Old Age” in the January, 1921, number.

The World in Revolt, New York, 1921, 256 pp.

See my Jesus, the Christ, in the Light of Psychology, Chapters VII and XI.

Am. J. Psychology, vol. 8, p. 67 et seq.

“A Study of Fears,” Am. J. Psy., vol. 8, pp. 147–249; see also Street, “A Genetic Study of Immortality,” Ped. Sem., vol. 6, p. 167 et seq.

L. Proal, L’éducation et le suicide des enfants, Paris, 1907, p. 204; G. Budde, Schülerselbstmorde, Hanover, 1908, p. 59; E. Neter, Der Selbstmord im kindlichen und jugendlichen Alter, 1910, p. 28; L. Gurlitt, Schülerselbstmorde, n. d., p. 59; Baer, Der Selbstmord im Kindesalter, Liepzig, 1901, p. 85; Eickhoff, “Die Zunahme der Schülerselbstmorde an den höheren Schulen,” Zts. f. d. evangel. Religionsunter, an höheren Lehranstalten, 1909, vol. 4; Eulenberg, “Schülerselbstmorde” in Der Saemann, 1909, vol. 5, p. 30; Gebhard, “Über die Schülerselbstmorde,” Monatss. f. höhere Schulen, 1909, vols. 3 and 4, p. 24; Wehnert, Schülerselbstmorde, Hamburg, 1908, p. 81.

Mersey “La Tanatophilie dans la famille des Hapsbourg,” Rev. d. Psychiatr. Nr. 12, 1912, p. 493, describes the strange case of love of death in the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella and also Charles V. The former, after the death of her husband, Philip the Beautiful, whom she loved with a consuming jealousy, had his body embalmed and only with great difficulty could she leave the coffin where it lay. Sometimes she had it open for a time to kiss the bare corpse and did so with the greatest passion. This state had periods of remission and exacerbation. The history of Charles, too, can be paralleled in many modern instances, while dreams show us still more clearly how necrophilic man can be.

Witry says that from his own practice he believes thanatophobiacs are almost always from the professional or upper middle classes, those from the lower classes meeting death with more stoicism than those of the upper. Catholics, he says, have little fear of death. Thanatophobes are usually neuropaths of degenerate heredity. One of his cases, a girl of 18, was suddenly seized by a violent fear that she was to die within an hour. She was put to sleep by suggestion and woke up normal. A woman teacher of 49 had three acute attacks, cured by suggestion. A middle-aged physician, after being drunk, had acute fear of death and Hell, which yielded to medical treatment. Old priests, we are told, are especially subject to it if neuropathic or “scrupuleux.” Some feel it acutely when, after fighting a long reluctance to do so, they have compelled themselves to make a will.

Ferrari, “La peur de la morte,” Rev. Scient., 1896, vol. 5, p. 59, describes several cases of tolerably healthy people who have had sudden premonitions of death, with acute fear, and who have shortly thereafter died, some of them from no ascertainable cause. Hence he raises the question whether an obsession of death can be so strong as to cause it.

Fiessinger gives a case, which he thinks directly due to the symptoms of angina pectoris, and discusses whether patients should be told their disease and its gravity, in view of this possible phobia.

Ferrero, “La crainte de la morte,” Rev. Scient., 1895, vol. 3, p. 361, thinks the natural man has little fear or thought of death and its representations in art and religion are not painful, on account of the sustaining influences of our organic sensations. Still, the thought of death does have much influence upon our ideas, and to some extent our sentiments. The mathematical chances of death plays a small rôle in affecting the choice of professions. It is only the prospect of impending death that shocks. Chronic invalids have little fear but only hope for life, for example, consumptives, while to some, for example, Indian widows, lovers, it is attractive. Hence he thinks it normally indifferent and sometimes agreeable but becomes an object of fear only by association.

Levy, “Die agoraphobie,” Wien. allg. medizin. Zeitung, 1911, nr. 10, gives a case of an agoraphobia that was rooted in a very distinct dread of death by a special disease. A Dubois psychotherapeutic conversation, which proved the fallacy of its grounds and to which the patient attended, although with great effort, did not quiet but only increased excitement. Excitement and exhaustion were the chief symptoms and the case yielded only to isolation and rest.

A striking illustration of this comes to me, as I write, in a popular song with lugubrious music that many of my young friends persist in singing and humming as if haunted by it.

SOME SWEET DAY

Did you ever think as the hearse rolled by That some day or other you must die?

In an old churchyard, in a tiny lot, Your bones will wither and then they’ll rot.

The worms’ll crawl up, the worms’ll crawl in, They’ll crawl all over your mouth and chin.

They’ll bring their friends, and their friends’ friends, too; You’ll look like hell when they’re through with you.

Am. J. Sociology, March, 1921.

The Next War, New York, 1921.

Die Sprache des Traumes, 1911, pp. 214–284.

The World as Will and Idea, vol. iii, p. 249 et seq.

See my Jesus, the Christ, in the Light of Psychology, Chap. XI, “Death and Resurrection of Jesus.”

Guérison et Evolution dans la Vie de l’Âme.

See my Jesus, the Christ, in the Light of Psychology, Vol. II, Ch. 11.

Science and Immortality, Boston, 1904, 54 pp.

G. Lionel Taylor (The Stages of Human Life, N. Y., Dutton, 1921, 363 p.) says that there are four stages in the process of what he believes to be normal dying: first there is an appealing, anxious, puzzled look at the approach of a great crisis, as if wondering what the person will meet in the great darkness that is supervening, all not without an element of fear; then there supervenes a peace and poise, in which stage leavetakings are often made; third, when the last breath is drawn there is a strong impression on the bystanders that there has been a real departure, that something very actual has left, so that the body is no longer the friend. Then for perhaps an hour there is on the face of the dead a look of unnatural beauty and tranquillity which slowly fades and corruption begins.

Some in contemplating their own demise think chiefly of the isolation it involves. The most sympathetic friend can only go to the brink of the dark river which we must all cross absolutely alone. Suicide lovers sometimes vainly attempt companionship. Those about to die who are conscious of their impending departure may bid sad farewells to their friends. Aging and sickly people conscious of an impending end but with their faculties intact realize the inevitableness of dying alone no matter how many friends are about but are silent about it with an instinctive reluctance to betray any of the perturbations which weaklings, patheticists, and hystericals seek refuge in.

To others the thought of their own death centers in the idea of their body. They see themselves in thought pale, rigid, insentient, and follow the fate of their corpse in every detail at least up to interment or cremation, and some cannot resist a rather strong imaginative experience as to how their living sentient body would feel the rigidity, the cold, the treatment to which it is subjected, the gazing of friends, a custom which some interdict.

A third group focus on the cessation of activities which begins in the dimming of the senses and the weakening of motor or other powers, and here, too, we find two attitudes: that of compulsive but regretful renunciation, and the other of longing as for rest. In this sense death begins with the first abatement of powers, and as we have time slowly to adjust to progressive enfeeblement we do so more and more readily.

See especially J. H. Leuba, The Belief in God and Immortality, 1916, 340 pp.

The Philosophy of Long Life, Tr. from the French by Harry Roberts, 1903, 305 pp.

See Chapter VI.

The Limits of Evolution and Other Essays, New York, 1901.

The Conception of Immortality. Also The World and the Individual.

The Evolution of Immortality.

The Study of Life and Death.

Death and Afterward.

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.

Page 425: “so they we have come” was printed that way, but may be a misprint for “so that we have come”.