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GENERAL NEWS
Investigations in Gerontology.—The National Institute of Health, of the United States Public Health Service, is organizing a new unit for research into some of the many problems of aging. With the conspicuous shift to greater age in the population, senescent persons are becoming increasingly significant in the national economy and defense. Preventive medicine must attack the practical problems of the rising proportion of deaths attributable to diseases of middle age and later life and energetically attempt to augment the health and vigor of those persons who are past the meridian of life. Aging is a continuous biologic phenomenon, which starts on creation of a new person and continues at variable rates until death. The problems of aging (gerontology) are not limited to the diseases of the aged (geriatrics), for the latter are the consequences of senescence. In man, probably the most significant period of life for gerontologic