I found out that colonels can stay until they drop dead or get a walker and being a critical medical specialty as an Army trained emergency room doctor I could stay until age 67.
Goethe died in 1832. As you know Goethe was very active in science. In fact he did some very good scientific work in plant morphology and mineralogy. But he was quite bitter at the way in which many scientists refused to grant him a hearing because he was a poet and therefore they felt he couldn't be serious.