The Optimistic Studies

14 hrs. 57 min.

Popular Science

Language Russian

Author Ilya Mechnikov

Narrator Boris Fedoseev

Description

In “Studies on the Nature of Man,” we lay out the theory of the internal mechanism that leads to the aging of our body. My views sparked objections on the one hand and research on the other.
Because the study of aging has both great theoretical interest and practical significance, I consider it useful to return to this question again.
There are still peoples who solve the issue of old age in the simplest way: they kill their elderly. In civilized countries, the question is complicated by the interference of lofty feelings and general considerations.
Across Melanesia, there is a custom of burying elderly people alive who are no longer useful for work.
In Tierra del Fuego, when hunger threatens, women are killed and eaten before the dogs are touched. The natives explain it by saying that dogs catch walruses, while old women cannot do that. Among some Native peoples of North America, at least half of the old people are abandoned to fate when they can no longer walk. It is considered normal and justified as better to die than to drag out a useless, suffering-filled existence.
Civilized nations do not act like the people of Tierra del Fuego or other savages; they do not kill or eat their elderly. Yet the lives of the latter are often very hard. They are seen as a burdensome load because they cannot be useful either in the family or in society. Even though no one thinks they are entitled to get rid of them, everyone desires their death—and is surprised that the longed-for end does not come sooner.