Abstract
Aging is one of the most intriguing and least understood phenomenon in modern biology. Nonetheless, it is present everywhere around us — and it is in us. Man has always followed with amazed curiosity and emotional interest the changes accompanying birth, development, aging, and death. And human beings date back to the very day when they became aware of aging and death and started to bury the dead. But superstition and ignorance also have always obscured the occurrence of aging and Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland, who wrote the medical bestseller of the 18th century (“On the Art of Prolonging Human Live”, 1796 [1], rightly stated:
“This problem has always been a favorite of the keenest minds, a playground for daydreamers, and the main enticement for charlatans and swindlers.”
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Hufeland, CW (1798) Die Kunst das menschliche Leben zu verlängern. Akademische Buchhandlung, Jena
Weismann, A (1884) Über Leben und Tod. Jena
Goethe, JW von (1783) Fragment „Die Natur”, Tiefurter Journal
Wood, WB (1988) The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory , Cold Spring Harbor
Reichel, W et al (1971) Progeria and Werner’s syndrome as models for the study of normal human aging. J Am Geriatric Soc 19: 369–375
Dayhoff, MO (1972) Atlas of Protein Sequence and Structure Vol. 5, National Biomedical Res. Found., Washington, D.C.
Orgel, LE (1970) The maintenance of the accuracy of protein synthesis and its relevance to ageing: a correlation. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 67: 1476
Curtis, HJ (1968) Das Altern — die biologischen Vorgänge. Gustav Fischer, Stuttgart
Hayflick, L (1980) The cell biology of human aging. Sci Am 242: 58–65
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1992 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Zwilling, R. (1992). Aging — Still a Mystery. In: Zwilling, R., Balduini, C. (eds) Biology of Aging. Reihe der Villa Vigoni, vol 1. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-85789-8_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-85789-8_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-54488-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-85789-8
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive