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Conard 1961). (1) Skin looseness: The skin fold at the junction of the
chin and neck was measured in millimeters as described previously.
(2) Skin elasticity: Measured on the back of the hand by allowing the

caliper to pinch a fold of skin for one minute and measuring the time
for the skin fold to retract to the surrounding skin surface. The exact
endpoint was sometimes difficult to measure in older people, and if the
fold had not retracted completely in 90 seconds, this time measurement

was used as maximum,

(3) Greying of the hair:

The degree of greying

of the hair was expressed on a zero to four plus scale as follows: 0, no
greying; 1+ slight "salt and pepper" greying; 2+ moderate "salt and
pepper'' greying; 3+ nearly complete greying; 4+ complete greying.
Special Senses.

(1) Eyes:

(a) Accommodation.

Accommodation

was measured in diopters by use of the Prince refracting rule, The average reading of the two eyes was used. (b) Visual Acuity. Visual acuity

was measured by Snellen's test. It was found that by taking the square root
of the average visual acuity (denominator) of the twoeyes the scale was more
compressed and more linear, Thus the best vision of 20/10 was represented
at 3.2 (the square root of 10), the worst reading of the 20/200 was represented
as 14.1 (the square root of 200), and intermediate readings similarly record-

ed.

(c) Arcus Senilis.

Estimated in the 0-4+ scale. Only slight limbic

clouding was considered 1+ with increasing clouding to marked clouding as 4+,
(2) Ears:
(a) Hearing. Audiometric examinations
were carried out in a special cubicle lined with acoustic tile. A rugged
screening type audiometer was used. Impairment of hearing was averaged
for the two ears as follows: the decibel loss for each of the six frequencies
(200, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000, 7000) for each ear was averaged and a mean
frequency loss in decibels for the two ears was obtained.
With regard to the reliability of determinations using the Prince
refracting rule, Snellen's test and hearing acuity, it should be pointed out
that these tests were carried out under standardized conditions, but in view
of the necessity of using an interpreter under field conditions, it was not
feasible to repeat the test by more than one examiner. It is believed, however,
that the data from these tests were sufficiently reproducible to be of relative
value, although not so accurate perhaps as might be obtained under more
desirable conditions,
Cardiovascular Changes.

(1) Systolic Blood Pressure,

Obtained

a

with the standard aeronoid cuff type sphygmomanometer. Two readings were
obtained and the average of the two was used. There was no basic or adjusted
level of physical activity such as resting for a standard period of time prior to
the readings. Pressures were taken from the left arm with the subject supine
during the course of the physical examination,

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