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research on aging, I studied the rate and level of adaptation to the dark in
relation to age. I borrowed the dark adaptation equipment from a staff
member of the Institute of Experimental Biology and Medicine at the
NIH, an institute that no longer exists. The findings were that the rate
of dark adaptation did not change with age although the level did. I be
came interested in adaptation to the dark because a member of the Naval
Research Staff had used the same equipment and had used me as a
young control subject when I was in my late 20s in the Navy. The ques
tion being asked then was whether a nasal spray of vitamin A, or its pre
cursor, beta carotene, would enhance the night vision of combat troops.
The head of the project found that the nasal spray was not effective.
I wanted to broaden my perspective on the effects of aging on behavior
and the nervous system and asked to be transferred to the NIMH. This
was done in 1950, and I was assigned to do research on aging at the
University of Chicago during the time that the research facilities of the
NIMH were being built. The massive Building 10–the NIH Clinical
Center–was being constructed that would house both laboratory and
clinical research from all of the institutes. In 1953, I arrived at the new
NIMH facilities and was assigned to the Laboratory of Psychology, as
chief of the Section on Aging. Looking back, I see that my model of
the organization of research on aging was multidisciplinary and was
somewhat different than that of many of my contemporary colleagues.The Context of Research on Aging in the 1950s
At that time there was a shifting emphasis in the Public Health Service
(PHS) from the infectious diseases of the 1930s to the chronic diseases
in the 1950s. This change put the human organism in the role of a
contributor or a cause of illness rather than as a host to an invading
foreign agent. This emphasis was expressed in the efforts of the Josiah
Macy, Jr., Foundation, particularly in its support of the publication of
E. V. Cowdry’s influential volume, Problems of Ageing.^1 The Josiah Macy,
Jr., Foundation later supported the PHS’s conference on “Mental Health
in Later Maturity” in May 1941. The conference, addressed by the
Surgeon General, was attended by biologists, physicians, psychiatrists,
psychologists and other disciplines, reflecting the growing awareness