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    awa

    y from their families and friends experience blockage of the arter-

    ies and heart disease.43  On the other hand, rabbits who are petted and

    hugged live 60% longer.

    When their mates die, male hamsters  stop eating and sleeping,

    and often succumb to death themselves.  They are not alone.  A British

    study indicated that in the first year after a wife dies, a widower has a

    40% greater risk of death.  In another study at New York's Mount Sinai

    School of Medicine, men who had lost wives to breast cancer

    experienced a sharp drop in the activity of their immune system one to

    two months after the loss44.  A survey of 7,000 inhabitants of Alameda

    County, California, showed that "isolation and the lack of social and

    community ties" opened the door to illness and an early demise.

     An even broader investigation by James J. Lynch of actuarial and

    statistical data on victims of cardiovascular disease indicated that an

    astonishing percentage of the million or so Americans killed by heart

    problems each year have an underlying difficulty that seems to trigger

    their sickness: "lack of warmth and meaningful relationships with

    others."45  On the other hand, research in Europe suggested that kissing

    on a regular basis provides additional oxygen and stimulates the

    output of antibodies.

    Closeness to others can heal.  Separation can kill.

    The cutting of the ties that bind can be fatal even in the wild.

    Jane Goodall, the researcher who has studied chimpanzees in the

    Gombe game preserve of Africa since 1960,  saw the principle at work

    in a young animal named Flint.  When Flint was born, his mother

    adored him.  And he, in turn, doted on her.  She hugged him, played

    with him, and tickled him until his tiny, wrinkled face broke out in the

    broad equivalent of a chimpanzee smile.  The two were inseparable.

    When Flint reached the age of three, however, the time came for

    his mother to wean him.  But Flo, the mother, was old and weak.  And

    Flint, the chimpanzee child, was young and strong.  Flo turned her

    back and tried to keep her son away from the nipple.  But Flint flew

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