In 1979 Norman Cousins, the long serving Editor in Chief of the now defunct literary magazine Saturday Review, published Anatomy of an Illness, laying out his belief that laughter can play a significant role in recovering from illness. Cousins was not without credentials in this area having also served as Adjunct Professor of Medical Humanities for the School of Medicine at UCLA. At the time of publication Cousins was fighting the debilitating effects of serious heart disease. His research into the biochemistry of emotions led him to believe that laughter could help in the healing and recovery from any diagnosis.
