ABSTRACT
Throughout the history of the human species, men and women have clung to life and used every means available to live as long as possible. A theme running through historical records in different time periods and different cultures has been the search for a way to reverse the aging process. The search for an elixir or fountain of youth was almost universal. Leonard Breen (1970) observed that “Special foods to be eaten, special relationships to be cultivated, surgery which might be undertaken, special waters or other liquids to be ingested all were thought to be solutions by some.”1 It was not until the twentieth century, however, that the understanding and study of the aging process left the area of witchcraft and folklore and became a legitimate subject of a number of different scientific disciplines.
