Preventive Medicine and the disappearance of random causes of death in developed countries have led to ageing populations and the consequent need for radical change in health service provision. This book comes at an opportune time as the old-fashioned National Health Service is reformulated to accord better with medical need, most of which concerns the elderly population that is projected to grow until 2025. Dr Thompson's book offers the modern concept of age change to be due to human development, rather than 'decline' or 'degeneration'. The outmoded idea that a disease is something that you either have or don't have is replaced by the modern concept of homoeostatic disturbance producing changes that are at first insidious and indistinguishable from good health arE one end of the scale, but which later advance across the clinical threshold and produce gross organic disturbance. The main function of the GP lies in his longitudinal relationship with parents, requiring understanding of the diseases of ageing and reducing the rate of pathological change, so preventing as far as possible the need for rehabilitation, the function of the hospital officer.