Progeria

A young acolyte asks a Buddhist monk: "Venerable one: How, at my age, can I learn the feelings and meaning of aging?" And the monk's laconic reply: "Wait." Certainly the experience of aging is one of the more undeniable attributes, or perhaps burdens, of time's passage. Time and aging-both in real life and in etymology have always been, if not coconspirators, then certainly partners.

The Greek word, chronos, meaning time, appears in such English words as chronology, chronicle, chronic and crony, each hinting inferentially that something qualitatively different is to be encountered with the passing of time. The word, crone, meaning an elderly, withered woman, may also be derived indirectly from the Greek chronos.

Another Greek root, geront-, pertains to old men. This root provides the basis for the word, gerontology, the study of aging [in both male and female, however]. Still other derivatives of geront- include gerontocracy [a political entity governed by old men; its female counterpart is gynecocracy], progeria [the clinical state of premature aging] and a member of the thistle family of flowers, the ageratum [with the privative a-, thus meaning not senile, that is, ageless or everlasting].

Somewhere in the midst of ancient Greek mythology is the name, Geryon [it was Geryon's cattle that Heracles was required to lift in his fifth labor]; and the Spartan council of elders was appropriately called Gerousa, both words based on the Greek root, geronti-.

The word, geriatrics, meaning the medical study of aging, was coined by L.L. Nascher in 1914, using as his model the words pediatrics [the medical study of childhood diseases] and gyniatrics [the study of women's diseases]. The -iatries root is derived from the Greek word, iatros, meaning physician.

The geront- base had evolved from a more ancient Middle Eastern root, zar-, also meaning aging. The name of the founder of a major Persian faith, Zoroaster, literally means "he whose camels are old."

The Latin, senescere, meaning to grow old, has led to a considerable number of English words, including senior, senile, senium, senescent and seneschal [a senior servant], all describing the status of individuals who have survived for extended intervals. The Spanish titles of respect for adult men and women [and their Portuguese equivalents] are senor and senora, respectively, each derived directly from senescere.

STANLEY M. ARONSON, MD, MPH

Copyright Rhode Island Medical Society Aug 2004
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved