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VOLUME 22, NUMBER 38
OCTOBER 10,1975
DURHAM, NORTH CAROUNA
Two Decades of Adding ^Life^ to Years
Pioneer Center Celebrates 20th Anniversary
MAKING A POINT—Dr. George L. Maddox, professor of medical sociology, directs
the Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development's efforts in research,
education and community service. He said members of the center, which is
celebrating its 20th anniversary this weekeml, are interested in adding "life" to years,
rather than simply adding years to life. (Photo by Thad Sparks)
As Annual Observance Nears
ColumbusTheories Abound
An Irishman, not Leif Ericson or
Columbus, first reached the shores of
America.
That is the claim of Atlanta
businessman Paul Chapman, who
recently published his arguments in a
book entitled The Man Who Led
Columbus To America.
Wear Something Green
According to Chapman, St.
Brendan the Navigator led a group
of Irish monks across the seas to the
New World way back in 564 A.D. St.
Brendan and his followers also
discovered the Azores, the Antilles,
the Bahamas, and the Faroe Islands.
Columbus, says Chapman, merely
acquired St. Brendan’s manuscripts
and used them to navigate his
crossing of the Atlantic some 900
years later.
And Columbus, says Simon
Wiesenthal, the man who spent years
of finding Adolf Eichman, was
actually a Jew in search of the Ten
Lost Tribes of Israel.
Wisenthal’s theory is set forth in his
book called Sails of Hope, The Secret
Mission of Christopher Columbus.
Actually, Wisenthal presents some
fairly stimulating evidence to back up
his theory. He notes that at least
one-third of Columbus’ crew was
Jewish and that the voyage embarked
from Spain the day following the
expulsion of all Jews from that
country.
Wisenthal notes that Columbus’
background has never been firmly
established. Also, he says, Columbus
was a master cartographer, and
cartography — or map making —
was a profession practiced almost
exclusively by Jews.
An^ Say ‘Shalom’
Other evidence in support of the
Wisenthal theory includes the fact
that Hebrew lettering has been
discovered on Columbus’
manuscripts and that the only
translator aboard the ship was a Jew.
The Jewish translator, incidentally, is
supposed to have been the first
European to step on shore in
America and address the astonished
Indians with a cordial “Shalom."
So come Columbus Day, Oct.
12/13, wear the green and say,
“Shalom."
By David Williamson
“Rather than simply adding years
to life, we’re interested in adding ‘life’
to years,” said Dr. George L.
Maddox, director of the university’s
Center for the Study of Aging and
Human Development which is
celebrating its 20th anniversary this
month.
“We know that in a few rare cases,
people can live beyond 100 years
old,” Maddox said, “and the question
inevitably comes up—‘Couldn’t
everyone?’
“We have taken the position that
while increasing the average lifespan
of the population is a commendable
goal, a more pressing concern should
focus on increasing the quality of life
in those years that a great number of
people already have available to
them.”
Council on Gerontology
Back in 1955, a group of 16 senior
faculty members at Duke established
the Council on Gerontology with that
goal in mind. The council led to the
establishment here of the nation’s
first regional Center for the Study of
Aging by the United States Public
Health Service two years later.
It was the brainchild of Dr. Ewald
W. Busse, now director of medical
and allied health education.
The center has conducted research
on almost every facet of aging, from
the physical decline of the senses with
advanced years to the roles of the
aged in modern society, from sexual
behavior in old age to brain
impairment and the economics of
growing old in a culture which
celebrates youth.
It also has trained dozens of young
investigators who, according to
Maddox, will be among the leaders in
aging research in the future, and it
has developed and tested a number
of projects directed toward elderly
persons in the community.
Many Publications
During the past two decades,
investigators affiliated with the center
have published more than 500 books
and articles on the experience of
aging.
Maddox looks at the institution he
directs, which is itself still in its youth,
with both pride and enthusiasm.
“The motto we have informally
here—‘service and training in the
service of the aging and the
aged’—anticipated the public cry for
relevance of the late 1960’s and early
1970’s," he said. “We haven't been
doing research just to be doing
research, and we haven’t been doing
training just to be doing training.
“We kept in mind that there was
supposed to be a payoff in terms of a
benefit to s(x;iety."
Research
What are some examples of aging
research that is carried on here?
Since the founding of the center,
major research efforts have focused
on interdisciplinary longitudinal
studies designed to explore the
normal processes of iiging. A
longtitudinal study of aging, Maddox
said, is one which follows subjects for
some predetermined period of time,
say, for five years, 20 years or even
longer.
Two such studies are continuing at
the center. The first began in 1955
with 271 persons between the ages of
60 and 90 from the Durham
community. The group represented
an age, sex, ethnic and socioeconomic
mixture of the older population of
the area, and the study was primarily
directed toward the physical changes
occurring during aging.
The second “panel” was formed in
1968, and it consisted of 502 subjects
between 46 and 70 years old. With
this group, investigators are looking
at the special problems, social as well
as physical, to which middle-aged
and older people are forced to adapt
as they grow older.
Winding Down
“Twenty years ago,” Maddox said,
(Continued on page 3)
Specialists Meet For
National Symposium
On Aging Research
The Center for the Study of Aging
and Human Development will host a
national symposium today and
tomorrow entitled, “Behavior and
the Aging Brain.”
The aims of the symposium, ac
cording to director Dr. George L.
Maddox, are “to assess the'current
state of information about brain func
tioning in late life and to chart the im
portant future research issues.
“We intend to focus on
neurological changes which affect
functioning in the later years of life,”
Maddox explained, “and how our
understanding of these changes can
increase our ability to maintain or im
prove the functional capacity of older
persons.”
More than 150 specialists on aging
from across the U.S., including
psychiatrists, psychologists,
sociologists, anatomists, neurologists
and surgeons, are expected to attend
the event.
An address by Robert M. Ball,
commissioner of Social Security from
1962 to 1973, on “The Future of
Social Security in the United States”
will preceed the opening of the sym
posium on Thursday. Ball is now
scholar-in-residence at the National
Academy of Sciences’ Institute of
Medicine.
Friday's sessions will include re
ports on current research on
neuropsychology and
neuropathology. Saturday’s meeting
will center on electrophysiology,
cerebral hemodynamics and
metabolism.