Old age at first sight is a biological process, but our behavior, as well as our feelings during old age, and also our thoughts about old age, all are dependent on our social and cultural background. This insight becomes all the more clear when we are looking at the past. In this lecture we will try to understand how elderly people in Mamluk Egypt and Syria were dealing with issues of old age and illness. Our main focus will be the methodological question: How can we gain knowledge about Mamluk perceptions of medicine and old age, and how can we check the effect of such ideas for specific people in Mamluk society? Which sources can we use in order to answer such questions, and how should we combine different sources in order to get a most realistic picture?