Hoi Polloi!

Thanks, Merry Christmas to you too.


One of the most interesting parts of the reading in "Health of Nations" that I discovered was the Roseto experiment, which took an Italian-American town in the mid 1950s and studied the social health of the people. To the suprise of researchers (or scientists or philosophers, I really don't know) the town had the same prevalence for risk factors such as heart disease, obseity, high blood pressure, etc. as any neighboring towns yet suffered less than half the rate of heart attack. The researchers found that there was a "striking degree of solidarity with their community. Ther ewas a strong tradition of helping one's friends as well as friends of one's friends. The idea of helping eachother out help significantly to increase health benefits. The culture even had a set of checks and balances (figuratively, im guessing) to ensure that neither success no failure got out of hand. The dress and mannerisms were also very similar throughout the town, thus no one could easily tell the difference between the rich and poor. The fantasy did not last long, however, when the community started to become preoccupied with materialistic goods. Ah yes, Merry Christmas! Anyways, this idea of being able to help eachother out and have a genuine concern for one another to increase health benefits is remarkable.