Survival, and a modicum of indulgence in the sick role.

Serendipitously occasioned, interim findings from an exploratory study "which-as Whitehead once said of William James's pragmatism-'chiefly starts a log of hares for people to chase.'"3 The data, collected in a 1965 community survey of health, show that no indulgence in the sick role apparently entails greater mortality risk than does a modicum of such indulgence.