Myth and Stereotype in the Clinical Medicine of Old Age

Abstract

MANY years ago Dr. William Welch, one of the four great founders of the Johns Hopkins Medical School, made the sage comment not only that we need new medical research, but, even more importantly, that we need to apply what we have already learned. The study of the development of knowledge of old age indicates that the later years of life have been the proper concern of physicians from Hippocrates and Galen, and of philosophers such as Plato and Cicero, through the Middle Ages and Renaissance down to the present day, when quantitative pressures have brought these questions new importance . . .