PROGRESS IN THE CARE OF THE AGED

During the past five or six years there has been considerable improvement in the interest shown in the community for the welfare of its oldsters and especially in the industrial and social problems of aging. Professor Kern, during a recent visit, gave a masterly address in which he reviewed the position of the oldsters from every conceivable angle. He showed statistically how the expectation of life was steadily increasing to the point where oldsters would be required to stay in industry to cope with the economic needs. When the first Queen Elizabeth reigned nearly four hundred years ago, the expectation of life was so low that a man at thirty-five years was classed as old. The expectation had since expanded to sixty or sixty-five years and would rise with further improvement in the medical care and social attention with provision of rehabilitation opportunities for the aging members of the community. In philosophical mood, he analysed the many and varied effects of increasing age on the mental outlook of people over sixty years of age. To some it was a stimulus and a challenge, but others, accepting it as inevitable, were willing to cease work and to take an inadequate pension as their last resource. From the medical angle, Professor Kern analysed the various factors which worked against the continued good health of aging persons; he included in these factors heredity, disease, increased liability to accident, alcoholism, and smoking. His whole address sparkled with humour, practical common sense, and human understanding. It is unfortunate that reprints of the address are not yet available