Can you really avoid illness?

Can you really avoid illness? (Photo: iStock)

Health advice comes in many forms. The most comical advice I have ever come across was a health decree recently issued by the Mayor of a small town in Southern Italy. The decree prohibited anybody in his town from getting sick!

Specifically, the residents were warned not to contract any illness requiring urgent medical assistance, not to engage in activities that may get them unwell, and to stay put and rest most of the time. It wasn't immediately clear how the Mayor's decree was going to get enforced.