Excerpt from Old Age Deferred: The Causes of Old Age and Its Postponement by Hygienic and Therapeutic Measures Whoever takes up this book with the idea that the aged can be transformed into sprightly adolescents will be disappointed. A work based entirely on evidence of a scientific nature, as is the present volume, cannot have such an end in view, since it is altogether unattainable - at least with what knowledge is now available. But while it is still impossible for us to create a young man out of an old one, it is quite within the bounds of possibility, as we shall endeavor to 'demonstrate herein, to prolong our term of youthfulness by ten or twenty years. In other words we need no longer grow old at forty or fifty; we may live to the age of ninety or one hundred years, instead of dying at sixty or seventy. All this can be brought about by the observance of certain hygienic measures, and by improving the functions of a certain few of the glandular structures in our body, provided incurable organic disorders have not already too gravely compromised one or more of our main organs. In a communication to the Paris Biological Society, presented in our name by Dr. Gley, Professor of Physiology at the University of Paris, and in an address delivered before the Brussels Royal Society of Medical and Natural Sciences, we described old age as a chronic disease due to degeneration of the glands with internal secretions (hereinafter frequently referred to as the ductless glands), of the thyroid, the sexual glands, and the adrenals in particular. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.