Nancy Merz Nordstrom - History of Gerontology

History of Gerontology

In the medieval Islamic world, several physicians wrote on issues related to Gerontology. Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine (1025) offered instruction for the care of the aged, including diet and remedies for problems including constipation. Arabic physician Ibn Al-Jazzar Al-Qayrawani (Algizar, c. 898–980) wrote on the aches and conditions of the elderly (Ammar 1998, p. 4). His scholarly work covers sleep disorders, forgetfulness, how to strengthen memory and causes of mortality Ishaq ibn Hunayn (died 910) also wrote works on the treatments for forgetfulness (U.S. National Library of Medicine, 1994).

While the number of aged humans, and the maximum life span, tended to increase in every century since the 14th, society tended to consider caring for an elderly relative as a family issue. It was not until the coming of the Industrial Revolution that ideas shifted in favor of a societal care-system. Care homes for the aged emerged in the 19th century.

Some early pioneers, such as Michel Eugène Chevreul, who himself lived to be 102, believed that aging itself should be a science to be studied. Elie Metchnikoff coined the term "gerontology" c. 1903

It was not until the 1940s, however, that pioneers like James Birren began organizing gerontology into its own field. Recognizing that there were experts in many fields all dealing with the older population, it became apparent that a group like the Gerontological Society of America (founded in 1945) was needed. Two decades later, James Birren was appointed as the founding director of the first academic research center devoted exclusively to the study of aging, the Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center at the University of Southern California. The Baltimore Longitudinal Studies of Aging began in 1958 in order to study physiological changes in healthy middle-aged and older men living in the community by testing them every two years on numerous physiological parameters. In 1967, the University of South Florida and the University of North Texas (formerly North Texas State University) received Older Americans Act training grants from the U.S. Administration on Aging to launch the nation's first degree programs in gerontology, at the master's level. In 1975, the University of Southern California's Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, with Birren as its founding dean, became the country's first school of gerontology within a university and, later, offered the first PhD in Gerontology degree. Since that time, a number of other universities have formed departments or schools of gerontology or aging studies.

More generally, gerontological education has flourished in the United States since 1967 and degrees at all academic levels are now offered by a number of colleges and universities. One of the pioneering gerontologists, Robert N. Butler, has pushed for care and respect of the elderly. Butler won a Pulitzer Prize for his book titled, "Why Survive? Being Old in America", where he discusses how the elderly are overlooked, mistreated, and sometimes even abused. His book gives clear evidence that it is imperative that we as a society, must modify our behavior toward the elderly. Several university-based centers on aging have been founded such as the Duke University Center on Aging, the University of Georgia Institute of Gerontology, the Center of Aging at the University of Chicago, and the Stanford Center on Longevity. Relatively few universities offer a PhD in gerontology. Currently, PhD programs in gerontology are available at Miami University, the University of Kansas, University of Kentucky, University of Maryland Baltimore, University of Massachusetts Boston, and the University of Southern California. The substantial increase in the aging population in post-industrial Western nations has led to this becoming one of the most rapidly growing fields.

From the 1950s to the 1970s, the field was mainly social and concerned with issues such as nursing homes and health care. However, research by Leonard Hayflick in the 1960s (showing that a cell line culture will only divide about 50 times) helped lead to a separate branch, biogerontology. It became apparent that simply treating aging was not enough. Developing an understanding of the aging process, and what could be done about it, became an issue.

Biogerontology was also bolstered when research by Cynthia Kenyon and others demonstrated that life extension was possible in lower life forms such as fruit flies, worms, and yeast. So far, however, nothing more than incremental (marginal) increases in life span have been seen in any mammalian species.