De cibo quod superest nobis sufficit; oportet gratias agere. Some elders have accepted this proposition, although seldom with enthu- siasm. Gerontologists also have been burdened with the adage: "Leftovers are good enough for us, and we should be grateful for them." I remember how a clerk tried to palm off astale and cheap cigar to her octogenarian customer. He knew better and carne away with a far superior smoke. The clerk fumed, "What does he need a good cigar for? Who is he to be particular!" In this and in many other ways, elders often have labored under the sociocultural expectation that they should be well content with whatever scraps and shmattes happen to come their way. Gerontologists can identify with this situation. The systematic study of aging and the aged was a new enterprise at the midpoint of this century, but the concepts and methods were pretty much limited to those already on hand. What biological and sociobehavioral scientists had been doing for years was simply extended to the newly annexed territory. This as not only a convenient but also a cost-effective strategy. Data accumulated more rapidly by remaining within familiar frarnes of reference and relying on farniliar designs and mea- sures. The new gerontologists soon harvested a promising crop of descriptive findings. Within a decade after the establishment of the Gerontological Society of America (1947), it was possible to discern the outlines of a valuable new field of knowledge.

From time to time, professional journals and edited volumes devote some of their pages to considerations of pain and aging as they occur among the aged in different cultures and populations. One starts from several reasonable assumptions, among them that aging per se is not a disease process, yet the risk and frequency of disease processes increase with ongoing years. The physical body's functioning and ability to restore all forms of damage and insult slow down, the immune system becomes compromised, and the slow-growing pathologies reach their critical mass in the later years. The psychological body also becomes weaker, with unfulfilled promises and expectations, and with tragedies that visit individuals and families, and the prospect that whatever worlds remain to be conquered will most certainly not be met with success in the rapidly passing days and years that can only culminate in death. Despair and depression coupled with infirmity and sensory and or motor inefficiency aggravate both the threshold and the tolerance for discomfort and synergistically collaborate to perpetuate a vicious cycle in which the one may mask the other. Although the clinician is armed with the latest advances in medicine and phar macology, significant improvement continues to elude her or him. The geriatric specialist, all too familiar with such realities, usually can offer little else than a hortative to "learn to live with it," but the powers and effectiveness of learning itself have declined."

From time to time, professional journals and edited volumes devote some of their pages to considerations of pain and aging as they occur among the aged in different cultures and populations. One starts from several reasonable assumptions, among them that aging per se is not a disease process, yet the risk and frequency of disease processes increase with ongoing years. The physical body's functioning and ability to restore all forms of damage and insult slow down, the immune system becomes compromised, and the slow-growing pathologies reach their critical mass in the later years. The psychological body also becomes weaker, with unfulfilled promises and expectations, and with tragedies that visit individuals and families, and the prospect that whatever worlds remain to be conquered will most certainly not be met with success in the rapidly passing days and years that can only culminate in death. Despair and depression coupled with infirmity and sensory and or motor inefficiency aggravate both the threshold and the tolerance for discomfort and synergistically collaborate to perpetuate a vicious cycle in which the one may mask the other. Although the clinician is armed with the latest advances in medicine and phar macology, significant improvement continues to elude her or him. The geriatric specialist, all too familiar with such realities, usually can offer little else than a hortative to "learn to live with it," but the powers and effectiveness of learning itself have declined."

De cibo quod superest nobis sufficit; oportet gratias agere. Some elders have accepted this proposition, although seldom with enthu- siasm. Gerontologists also have been burdened with the adage: "Leftovers are good enough for us, and we should be grateful for them." I remember how a clerk tried to palm off astale and cheap cigar to her octogenarian customer. He knew better and carne away with a far superior smoke. The clerk fumed, "What does he need a good cigar for? Who is he to be particular!" In this and in many other ways, elders often have labored under the sociocultural expectation that they should be well content with whatever scraps and shmattes happen to come their way. Gerontologists can identify with this situation. The systematic study of aging and the aged was a new enterprise at the midpoint of this century, but the concepts and methods were pretty much limited to those already on hand. What biological and sociobehavioral scientists had been doing for years was simply extended to the newly annexed territory. This as not only a convenient but also a cost-effective strategy. Data accumulated more rapidly by remaining within familiar frarnes of reference and relying on farniliar designs and mea- sures. The new gerontologists soon harvested a promising crop of descriptive findings. Within a decade after the establishment of the Gerontological Society of America (1947), it was possible to discern the outlines of a valuable new field of knowledge.