With this volume, third of the Ciba Foundation Colloquia on Ageing, the intensive and
extensive study of aging comes of age. While the diverse investigators and their many different
approaches defy exact summary, this book deals with the life expectancy of wild animals and
with somewhat comfortless data that deaths from all causes and pedestrian deaths from
automobile accidents follow almost identical curves, that spaniels and wolf-hounds outlive
dingoes, and that rattlesnakes lay increasingly more eggs as they get bigger and older until
the old ones suddenly give up in a fit of aging or because of the frustrations of senility.
The difficulties of studying aging in cells and cell populations is illustrated graphically.
Newer approaches to aging by such simple tests as stimulating the gums in animals and persons
of various ages and measuring the response offers a promising and very simple way to study
part of the problem.