The Prolongation of Life: Optimistic Studies (Classic Reprint)

Elie Metchnikoff

ISBN 10: 0260150347 / ISBN 13: 9780260150349

Published by Forgotten Books, 2018

About this Item

Used - Like New Book. Shipped from UK. Established seller since 2000.

Seller Inventory # P1-9780260150349

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Prolongation of Life: Optimistic Studies (Classic Reprint)
• Publisher: Forgotten Books
• Publication Date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0260150347
• ISBN 13: 9780260150349
• Binding: HRD
• Condition: Used - Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

Excerpt from The Prolongation of Life: Optimistic Studies

In this new volume, The Prolongation of Life, the main thesis is carried further, and a number of criti cisms and objections are met. The latter, so far as they relate to technical details, I need say nothing of here, as Metchnikoff and his staff at the Pasteur Institute are the most skilled existing technical experts on these matters, but I canhot refrain from a word of comment on the bril liant treatment of the objection to the suggested ameliora tion of human life that it considered only the individual ind neglected the just subordination of the individual to society. In the sixth Part of this volume, Metchnikoff dis cusses the relation of the individual to the species, society or colony, from the general point of view of comparative biology, and shows that as organisation progresses, the integrity of the individual becomes increasingly important. Were orthobiosis, the normal cycle of life, attained by human beings, there still would be room for specialisation of individuals and for differentiation of the functions of individuals in society, but instead of the specialisation and differentiation making individuals incomplete throughout their whole lives, they would be distributed over the different periods of the life of each individual.

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Review

"Three chief evils that hang over us are disease, old age, and death. To study and control senescence, Metchnikoff proposed the establishment of a new scientific discipline he named 'gerontology.' In this classic text on the prolongation of life, Metchnikoff suggests that science should be encouraged and helped in every possible way in its task of removing the diseases and habits that now prevent human life from running its normal course, and his belief is that, were the task accomplished, the great cause of pessimism would disappear. Metchnikoff was able to proclaim himself an optimist, and found, in biological science, for the present generation a hope, or at the least an end towards which to work, and for future generations a possible achievement of that hope." - From the Introduction by Gerald Gruman, MD, PhD"