[The significance of experimental gerontology for clinical geriatrics (author's transl)]

Aging is a physiological process. The experimental gerontology is substantially a purely theoretical science. In the future, however, it will attain increasingly more significance for many fields of medicine. After presenting a survey covering the most important theories of aging it is shortly entered into the efforts to establish a mathematical model of multicellular aging (Beier, Brehme and Wiegel 1973). Furthermore an introduction is given into a longitudinal program (3 years) of the own experimental-gerontological research using about 1000 Sprague-Dawley rats and age parameters. The mathematical evaluation of the results shall contribute to come to more exact and objective statements about age and vitality. The significance of the theoretical-experimental gerontology lies mainly in its efforts to study the fundamental conditions and the possibilities for a longer maintenance of vitality by systematic measures and to reduce or retard the susceptibility to the socalled age-diseases.