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Index
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
1: The Body of Knowledge
Opening shots
Iraqi SCUDs and Chinese grandmothers
Roundheads and Cavaliers
Some completely fictitious case histories
Invisible worms
Chronic fatigue syndrome
2: Shadows on the Sun
Death, disaster and voodoo
Trouble, strife and sickness
Life events
The mind and the common cold
3: Psyche’s Machine: The Inside Story
The perception of sickness
Bad behaviour
Mind over immune matter
Understanding immunity
Autoimmunity
Measuring immunity
The mind – immunity connections
4: Mind and Immunity
What can the mind do to the immune system?
Bereavement and nuclear disasters
Spaceflight, exams and other nastiness
Does it matter?
What can the immune system do to the mind?
Depression
Immune conditioning
Immune conditioning and disease
Some allergic history revisited
The strange story of the left-handed brain
The wonderful world of herpes
5: The Demon Stress
What is Stress?
The biology of stress
Stress, immunity and health
The quality of stress
Control, control and control
The joy of stress
The stress-seekers
6: Other People
Hell is other people? – relationships as stressors
Hell is alone? – the harmful effects of isolation
Michael Henchard’s will
How does it work?
Social relationships and immunity
The lonely future
7: The Wages of Work
The toad work
Who suffers and why?
The scourge of unemployment
8: Sick at Heart
Hearts and minds
The mind in sudden cardiac death and heart disease
Coronary-prone personalities and heart disease
The Type A behaviour pattern
Type A – the evidence
Anger and hostility
How does it work?
Biological reactivity and the Type A person
9: The Mind of the Crab
The mind in cancer
Is there a cancer-prone personality?
Some fictional type Cs
Psychological influences on survival
How does it work?
10: Encumbered with Remedies
Relax!
Exercise!
Those little pink pills
Psychoneuroimmunology and AIDS
Imagery, miracle cures and other exotica
Kill or Cure?
11: Exorcising the Ghost in the Machine
That old mind – body problem
The grip of dualism
Some ancient history
René Descartes and the separation of mind from body
Descartes’ demise
12: A Fresh Pair of Lenses
Development
Mothers and Offspring
Evolution
Sick by design
Genes for disease
Diseases of modern life
Evolutionary arms races
The functions of unpleasantness
Why does stress make us ill?
Darwin’s illness
Parting shots
Keep Reading
References
Index
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Notes
Praise
About the Publisher
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