Aging Process in Eye and Adnexa

Today the life expectancy at birth of a white child born in the United States is between sixty and sixty-five years. Negroes average about ten years less. 1 Fifty years ago the average expectation of life for white persons was forty-five years. 1 This change has come about through the control of communicable diseases, improvements in public sanitation, establishment of better nutrition and other advances that affect health. Between 1930 and 1940 the number of persons in the United States over 65 years of age increased by nearly 2,500,000 in a total population of 130,000,000. These figures indicate that ophthalmologists will be concerned increasingly with the treatment of the eyes of the aged. Although the life of man may be divided into the stages of evolution, maturity and involution, the aging process is really continuous from birth to death and shows great individual variation. Carrel 2 said : We must know