The aging process holds a special interest for physicians, who not only experience the phenomenon within themselves but also witness it in many forms in their patients. Aging is a natural process, not a disease entity, but it is associated with and complicates so many disease processes that we often view aging as we do a disease and try to prevent it, modify it, or in some fashion treat it. Some physicians have made aging the basis of a relatively new specialty, geriatrics, but focus their attention on illnesses suffered by the elderly rather than the aging process itself.
This book deals with the many basic biologic phenomena of the aging process in a series of essays, each constituting a chapter. These essays are not written in a highly technical style and can be understood by anyone with a modest background in biology. Each essay is a selfcontained unit and