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438 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. [i] (1978)

handle is hein.cow/anamacp0438 and id is 1 raw text is: PREFACE There are differences between the elderly, old age, those 65 years and over, and so forth. Senescence is normal; senility is a disease. Growing old is normal but aging is not, I am told by Dr. George Ehrlich, a promi- nent physician who specializes in rheumatoid arthritis. Some colleagues will have different opinions about these terms, but the biological-physio- logical changes that occur in the life cycle are such that no one escapes the certain damage to the brain cells, the skin tone, the wrinkling ravages of time. The gravity of time weighs on us all. We begin to age immediately after birth. Brain cells deteriorate at some calculated rate of thousands per day. The estimates of how many brain cells we have are very poor and very varied: They range from 1010 in general to 1011 for the cortex alone. That means 10 billion in the first estimate or 100 billion for the cortex alone. No brain cells can be rejuvenated, unfortunately. How are these uncertain data related to growing old? We lose brain cells every day. But we also lose friends, income, relatives, property, and many other things as we grow older. This annual meeting was devoted to the measures we might take, so- cially and politically, to protect the increasingly large number of older people in our population. From 10 percent at 65 and over in 1975 to 20 percent in 2020, the country will experience significant changes. The older population will become more important politically and may produce a ger- ontocracy, not only in the United States but in the Soviet Union and other countries as well. The papers presented at this annual meeting are among the most articulate and carefully stated articles we have had. I applaud the authors for their cautious, succinct, and insightful comments and hope that our Academy members will read this issue with special attention to the important topics which Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, Joseph A. Califano, Jr., who was our luncheon speaker, brought before us as a major set of questions for public policy. MARVIN E. WOLFGANG

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