Abstract

Except for two Hippocratic authors (one of Regimen and the other of Man's Nature), all physicians, biologists, philosophers and even poets of the archaic and classical ages considered elderly man as being cold and dry. Throughout his huge work, Galen attempts to prove that elderly beings are really cold and dry, and that they may have seemed humid owing to the abundance of their secretions. Galen lengthily drew up the regimen suitable for old people; he does not consider old age an illness, but rather that there is a health peculiar to the old man and that geriatics (gerokomikon) aims at maintaining this health. Galen believes that death — the unavoidable end of old age — is due to excessive dryness of the cardiac mass. Galen's views have were accepted, at least until the 18th century