Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging - Time Line

The NIH Record  -- January 23, 1990, Page 1 Nathan W. Shock Dies; Led Research on Aging Dr. Nathan W. Shock, 82, the dean of American gerontologists and retired scientific director of the National Institute on Aging, died of cancer November 12, 1989 at a hospital in Baltimore. In 1941, Shock came to Baltimore and joined the first research program on aging in NIH. From 1941 to 1964, he directed a unit of the NIH physiology division. He then worked with the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, directed the pioneering Gerontology Research Center and spent a year as scientific director at NIA before retiring in 1976.

Dr. Nathan W. Shock

The gerontology research program evolved from one run by Shock and a technical associate to an NIA intramural program with 200 scientists and researchers. Over the years, he also helped direct the postdoctoral training of more than 200 gerontology and geriatrics researchers. Since 1976, he had held the title of scientist emeritus at NIA's Gerontology Research Center in Baltimore. He remained active in scientific research until his death. From 1959 to 1970, he also had served on the National Academy of Sciences' atomic bomb casualty advisory board.

President of the Gerontological Society of America from 1960 to 1961, he also had been its publications committee chairman and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Gerontology. From 1969 to 1972, he was president of the International Association of Gerontology. He also had served as a division president of the American Psychological Association. He was a recipient of high awards from the Gerontological Society, the American Geriatrics Society, the American Heart Association and the old Department of Health, Education and Welfare. In June, NIA renamed its intramural Gerontology Research Center in his honor. Shock was editor of the Classified Bibliography of Gerontology and Geriatrics published by Stanford University Press in 1951, 1957 and 1963. He was the author or coauthor of more than 350 technical papers dealing with the chemistry, biology and psychology of aging.

Among the areas he and his colleagues explored was the physiology of aging in the heart, kidneys, lungs, nerve and brain. They clocked the different rates that different parts of the body age and documented the fact that people age at vastly different rates. Over the years, Shock used science, common sense and not a little humor to educate scientists and the public on aging. While he told reporters that man's longevity would continue to increase, he cautioned that he saw nothing dramatic on the horizon. For example, men's life expectancy between 1900 and 1975 increased from 47.9 years to 69.5. Yet the work of Shock and others pointed out that this seemingly dramatic increase was mainly due to the drop-off in childhood deaths. His studies pointed out that a man who reached 65 years in 1900 could expect to live 11.5 more years; one who reached that age in 1975 could expect to live an estimated 14 more years. He was an effective advocate for spending and research in his branch of health science. While it is pointed out that gerontology may not have the drama or immediacy of other health questions, it is a field that will affect a huge percentage of the population.

Shock, who lived in Towson, was a native of Lafayette, Indiana. He received a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Purdue University in 1926 and a master's degree in organic chemistry from there the following year. He received a doctorate in physiological psychology at the University of Chicago in 1930. He was affiliated with the University of California at Berkeley before moving to Baltimore.

His wife of 60 years, Margaret Truman Shock, died in April. His survivors include two sons, Joseph Baird Shock of Timonium and John Howard Shock of Alexandria; a sister, Beatrice S. Hargett of Hesperia, Calif.; seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Courtesy of the Washington Post

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