Centenarians and nonagenarians / by W. Gilman Thompson.

  • William Gilman Thompson
Date:
[1913]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Centenarians and nonagenarians / by W. Gilman Thompson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    CENTENARIANS AND NONAGENARIANS.* By W. GILMAN THOMPSON, M.D. NEW YORK. If one considers the balance of medical literature from the point of view of the age of patients it is very noticeable that with an enormous output of works relating to infancy and childhood the op- posite extreme of life has met with comparatively little exact study, even when the disproportionate number of survivors to extreme old age be reckoned with. In this article it is proposed briefly to review some of the morbid conditions and other phenomena of those who have entered upon the tenth decade of life and to include reference to centenarians. With regard to the latter it is my belief that the number of those in this country who have passed the hun- dredth year is exceedingly few. It is true that refer- ences frequently are made in the public press to deaths at ioo to 103 or more years of age, but they are very apt to be among persons whose exact history is obviously impossible to obtain. For ex- ample, a few days ago, the death of an Indian at 131 years of age was recorded, but in such cases tradition and sometimes desire for notoriety may easily be confused with fact, and in several exag- gerated statements as to extreme old age I have found upon inquiry that the alleged centenarian *A paper read before the Practitioners’ Society of New York, Dec. 6, 1912. Copyright, William Wood & Company.
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