[Significance of internal medicine for geriatrics--independent gerontology].

An overview is given of the evolution of gerontology in the German-speaking regions, which really began only after the Second World War. Geriatrics had no support from the official societies of internal medicine, who regarded it only as one of their specialties. Prominent in its future were always not only important developing geriatric cases in some medical university clinics, but the problems of the elderly for the caring heads of medical outpatients' clinics, old peoples' homes and nursing homes. At the same time, medical doctors, psychologists, sociologists and medical staff have been achieving important work in all the social and mental problems of old people.