Ignatz Leo Nascher

Ignatz Leo Nascher (11 October 1863 – 25 December 1944) was an Austrian-American medical doctor and gerontologist. He coined the term "geriatrics" in 1909.

Born in Vienna, Nascher immigrated to the United States at a young age. He graduated from Columbia University and received an M.D. from New York University. After more than two decades in private practice, Nascher began publishing his ideas on geriatrics. His theories, initially published in the New York Medical Journal, helped lay the groundwork for the modern study of ageing and elder care. In later life, Nascher worked for the city of New York as a medical administrator and attempted to put some of his ideas into effect.

As he aged, Nascher studied and described his and his wife's medical issues. In 1942, Nascher was elected in an honorary role as the first president of the American Geriatrics Society, and died in 1944. Gerontologist A.M. Clarfield wrote in 1990 that Nascher was "a pioneer and a prophet, a man clearly ahead of his time."

Early life and education Nascher was born in Vienna, Austria on 11 October 1863. Immigrating to the US with his family as an infant, he was raised in a New York City tenement without hot water.

Nascher first attended City College and subsequently transferred to the New York College of Pharmacy, which would become part of Columbia University. He began his career in private practice, first at Mount Sinai hospital and subsequently opening his own practice. Nascher was a lifelong Democrat and attended every inauguration of a Democratic president between 1885 (Cleveland) and 1936 (Roosevelt's second).

Geriatrics In 1909, Nascher published a groundbreaking article entitled "Geriatrics" in the New York Medical Journal (1909; 90: 358-9). He wrote, "Geriatrics, from geras, old age, and iatrikos, relating to the physician, is a term I would suggest as an addition to our vocabulary to cover the same field that is covered in old age that is covered by the term pediatrics in childhood, to emphasize the necessity of considering senility and its disease apart from maturity and to assign it a separate place in medicine."

His 1909 article broke with prevailing views on aging. Nascher wrote that "senility is a distinct period of life, a physiological entity as much so as the period of a childhood." This emphasis on physiological processes and mechanisms of aging and senescence challenged the "pathological model" of aging that was then "the primary focus of medical researchers, including Nobel Laureate Elie Metchnikoff." Nascher addressed and rejected Metchnikoff's theory that aging was caused by tissue phagocytosis and "autointoxication" (the absorption of intestinal decompositions), for which Metchnikoff prescribed yoghurt. It was the first American publication on geriatrics published since 1881 (''Clinical Lectures on the Diseases of Old Age).

Later life Nascher founded the New York Geriatrics Society in 1915. Nascher wrote that he hoped "to change the antiquated methods dealing with aged public dependents," and credited himself with focusing on their revitalization and rehabilitation. Augusta died in 1943. In the last year of his life, he listened extensively to the radio, and celebrated the Democratic victory in the 1944 election, saying that he was in his "second childhood." Nascher died on Christmas (December 25) 1944.