Cuddling babies reduces adult illness and criminality, breast-feeding infants makes them better able to give and receive love as adults-and touching patients helps them to heal. With a mass of supporting evidence from medical, psychological and sociological studies, this new edition of Anthony Walsh’s The Science of Love (Prometheus, New York, £/6.99, ISBN 1 57392 091 6) should be required reading for everyone in health and social care, and every parent. An important book-and very readable.
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