[Gerocomia, a stage in the history of geriatrics].

It is studied the evolution of medical and social attention to aged persons in the historical period, and this task is known under the name of Gerocomia. They are analyzed the historical reasons that make it understandable and the ones which, in the last part of the 19th century, impose its superseding due to the clinical differentiation of the process of aged persons getting ill; in this way, a new chapter is added to the pathology which will be called Geriatrics.