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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignatz_Leo_Nascher

Ignatz Leo Nascher (1863–1944) was born in Austria and later became a doctor. He coined the term "geriatrics" in 1909.

Nascher was born in Vienna, Austria, and immigrated to New York City where he was brought up. Later he also assumed US-citizenship. He drew on the Austrian system of care for the elderly. John Morley wrote that Nascher was "truly a polymath and a pioneer, whose ideas and efforts were underappreciated by his peers." Nascher graduated from college with a degree in pharmacy in 1882 at the age of 19. Several years later he completed his MD and began private practice to which he devoted the first years of his career. During his time he published articles including "A Young Living Fetus" (Medical Record of New York, 1889), an article on prostitution in 1908 and "Tissue Cell Evolution" (New York Medical Journal, 1910).

He wrote, "Geriatrics, from geras, old age, and iatrikos, relating to the physician, is a term I would suggest as an addition to our vocabulary to cover the same field that is covered in old age that is covered by the term pediatrics in childhood, to emphasize the necessity of considering senility and its disease apart from maturity and to assign it a separate place in medicine." This was originally published in an article entitled "Geriatrics" in the New York Medical Journal (1909; 90: 358-9).

His 1909 article broke with prevailing views on aging. Nascher wrote that "senility is a distinct period of life, a physiological entity as much so as the period of a childhood." This emphasis on physiological processes and mechanisms of aging and senescence challenged the "pathological model" of aging that was then "the primary focus of medical researchers, including Nobel Laureate Elie Metchnikoff." Nascher addressed and rejected Metchnikoff's theory that aging was caused by tissue phagocytosis and "autointoxication" (the absorption of intestinal decompositions) for which Metchnikoff prescribed yoghurt.

Dr. Nascher argued that the disease and medical care of the aged should be considered a separate specialty. His published research included the first U.S. textbook on geriatric medicine. Nascher founded the New York Geriatrics Society in 1915. Two years later, he started a regular feature in the Medical Review of Reviews. He was named the American Geriatrics Society's honorary president at their first meeting in June 1942.

Initially, Nascher encountered resistance from his colleagues. He had difficulty finding a publisher for his 1914 book, Geriatrics: The Diseases of Old Age and Their Treatment (Philadelphia: P. Blakiston's Son & Co). The book has three major sections: physiologic old age, pathologic old age and hygiene and medicolegal relations. Nascher concluded, as do most geriatricians today, "senescence is not due to any one cause." "[D]isease is not (always) a causative or even an essential factor." The Canadian Medical Association Journal reviewed the book in 1914 finding the book most interesting and valubalbe. The 517-pages book was reprinted in 1979 by Ayer Publishers. Nascher observed a fundamental antipathy towards the elderly in society: "The idea of economic worthlessness instills a spirit of irritability if not positive enmity against the helplessness of the aged."

I.L. Nascher, M.D. (1863-1944): The First American Geriatrician Lucy Ozarin Few psychiatrists know the name I.L. Nascher, M.D. Wrote Ewald Busse, M.D., and Dan Blazer, M.D., Ph.D., in their Textbook of Geriatric Psychiatry, published by American Psychiatric Publishing Inc., that Nascher is frequently considered the father of geriatrics and has been credited with coining the word“ geriatrics.”

Ignatz Leo Nascher, M.D., coined the term“ geriatrics.” Credit: Courtesy of the NYU School of Medicine, Ehrman Medical Library Archives In an article headlined “Geriatrics” in the New York Medical Journal in 1909, Nascher wrote that the word geriatrics is from the Greek word “geras, meaning old man, and iatrikos, relating to the [word] physician....” In Greek mythology, Geras is an old, shriveled man who represents the spirit of old age; his mother was Nyx, the so-called goddess of the night.

So the term geriatrics means a physician who specializes in the medical care of individuals in old age—the opposite of the term“ pediatrics,” relating to the medical care of children.

Senility “is a distinct period of life,” Nascher wrote,“ a physiological entity ... a period of life where degeneration and decay are natural and physiological.... [S]enility and its diseases should be considered apart from maturity and assigned to a separate place in medicine.”

Ignatz Leo Nascher was born in Vienna, Austria, and was brought to the United States as an infant. His formal schooling in New York City led to a degree in pharmacy in 1882 and his M.D. in 1885 from the Department of Medicine of New York University.

He entered medical practice in New York and served in the outpatient clinics of Mt. Sinai Hospital. Years later, in 1916, he took a position at the Department of Public Welfare, then at the Department of Hospitals. In 1931, at his request, he was put in charge of the 1,200-bed City Farm Colony on Roosevelt Island in Manhattan. That facility later became Goldwater Hospital and today is named Coler-Goldwater Memorial Hospital.

He lectured on geriatrics at several medical schools in New York, Boston, and Chicago. He organized the New York Geriatric Society, though its existence was short-lived.

In 1914 Nascher published a 500-page textbook, Geriatrics: The Diseases of Old Age and Their Treatment, which included physiological home and institutional care and medical-legal relations. A second edition was published in 1916. The book is said to be the first publication on geriatrics since the 1881 book by J.M. Charcot, M.D., and Alfred L. Loomis, M.D. titled Clinical Lectures on the Diseases of Old Age. An introduction to Nascher's book was written by Abraham Jacobi, M.D., president of the New York Academy of Medicine. Jacobi is credited with coining the word“ pediatrics” and establishing pediatrics as a separate medical discipline.

Nascher's bibliography includes more than 70 titles (among them “The Senile State,” “Senile Debility,” and “The Senile Mentality”) published in various medical journals.

In 1944 he read a paper on chronic brain syndrome at the annual meeting of the recently organized American Geriatric Society, which dedicated the meeting to Nascher and made him an honorary president.

Nascher divided the span of life into three distinct periods: development, maturity, and senescence. His writings constantly emphasized that maturity and senility are different entities and that diseases of each phase require different treatment. Drugs reactions in maturity are different from those in old age, he said. He viewed old age as a period of degenerating and decaying cells and tissues, where the goal is not to cure disease as in maturity, but to return the old person to the previous physiological degenerating phase and retard death.

“Senile degeneration is not a pathology and cannot be halted, though it may be retarded,” he wrote.

He was aware of the social implications of aging and urged that old individuals be encouraged to feel young, maintain a good appearance and positive attitude, and keep occupied. “Courtship and marriage between an old person and one much younger ... will produce marked mental rejuvenation.”

In the 1995 book Profiles in Gerontology: A Biographical Dictionary by W. Andrew Achenbaum, Ph.D., and D.M. Albert, the authors wrote that Nascher “was a prophet in every sense of the word.”▪