Enjoying Old Age

It is fast becoming an old folks' world. In the U.S., by 1980 about 40% of the population will be more than 45 years old. Medical science has done so well at prolonging man's life that it has a thriving specialty devoted to making old age more pleasant, or at least more tolerable.

Last week a group of geriatrists (specialists in diseases of old age) met in Philadelphia to compare notes. The bad news: the medical profession has not found--and probably never will find--a pill to make a middle-aged man feel 18 again. But the doctors are by no means pessimistic about other phases of their work.

Hormones have proved a failure in making older people feel younger, reported Pharmacologist Dr. Chauncey D. Leake, vice president of the University of Texas Medical Branch. But there is some hope, he said, in experimental work on vitamins as a means of making oldsters feel at least a little spryer. There seems no possibility of learning how to keep the heart, blood vessels and kidneys in first-class working condition deep into old age. But, asked Dr. Leake: "Do any of us want to? ... Will it not be possible for us some day to realize that death is a part of life?"

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