[Aging of veins and venules]

There is a distinction between natural ageing and excessive ageing. The problem is not only vascular, it is above all interstitial conjunctival; it is located in the trunk wall and in the initial collector walls; the capillary-venular section is, from this point of view, just a unit of structure and function. The clinical and anatomopathological aspects of venous ageing are known: they are those of phlebosclerosis and deposits of proteoglycanes, the lesions are non-homogenous, dispersed and constantly changing. The elderly patient lives in a state of stasis. Stasis creates exaggerated and uncontrollable histangic neogenesis, it is the backcloth of "micro-angiopathy of senescence", but if the membrane thickens, it is in order to counter the ill effects of stasis; it is a control reaction not one caused by lesion. It is vital to establish an analogy between vascular ageing and "plastic" ageing, the process of polymerization is the same and we shall produce the evidence of this on another occasion.