The Demography and Epidemiology of Human Health and Aging
Commons by 232 votes to 81. None of this provides any clue to how many unmarried cohabitees existed at this time or suggests that they were anything like as numerous as at the end of the century, but it is not surprising that such public acknowledgement of their existence has aroused the interest of historians. Probert traces this uncertain history, treating secondary sources with varying degrees of accuracy, through to the undoubted spread of open cohabitation following the cultural and legal changes of the late 1960s and 1970s. She shares, apparently unconsciously since she does not cite key works, what is now the common view among historians in this field, that the ‘permissive sixties’ did not spring unexpectedly from, or in reaction against, the supposedly repressive 1950s, but were the outcome of a longer, gradual process of change from at least the 1930s. Probert is convinced that this change was accompanied by a newly widespread belief that established cohabitees had the same legal rights as married people, signified by use of the term ‘common law marriage’. It is perhaps natural for a lawyer to assume that most people do not have much awareness of their legal status until they discover the limitations of their own, when they may experience severe shock. Probert offers no clear evidence that those who referred to ‘common law marriage’ held this belief, indeed the term was promoted by campaigners for such equality precisely because it did not exist. Such ambitions were encouraged by the fact that, as Probert says, tracing the process to 2010, the law gradually gave more recognition to heterosexual unmarried couples, though less than that granted to gay civil partners since 2004. She concludes: ‘My intention has been to set the historical record straight. Whatever one’s personal views, myths and misunderstandings are no basis for a coherent discussion of what the law has been and how it should develop.’ Quite so. # 2013 PAT THANE Institute for Contemporary British History Kings College London pat.thane@kcl.ac.uk http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00324728.2013.788320
[Analysis of the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases and associated factors among the elderly, 2000-2010].
The scope of this study was to analyze the difference in the prevalence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) between 2000 and 2010 and its association with socio-economic and risk factors among the elderly. Bayesian multilevel models were applied to analyze the difference in the prevalence of CVD, and the association between individual characteristics and the presence of CVD was analyzed by logistic regression models with complex samples separately for 2000, 2006 and 2010. This research is part of the Health, Welfare and Aging (SABE) study, performed in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and used the samples collected in 2000, 2006 and 2010. An increase in the prevalence of cardiovascular disease among the elderly was observed during the period, from 17.9% in 2000, to 22.2% in 2006, attaining 22.9% in 2010. In reference to the prevalence observed in 2000, the multilevel analysis indicated a significant increase in the presence of cardiovascular disease in 2006 (OR = 3.20 95%CI = 1.93-5.31) and 2010 (OR = 2.98 95%CI = 1.51-5.89), even after statistical adjustment for individual factors. The presence of CVD was associated with older age, smoking history, the presence of diabetes and hypertension, and an inverse association was observed between the presence of CVD and alcohol intake.
ROBERT HOOKE, MONUMENTS AND MEMORY
In June 1682, when Robert Hooke (1635–1703) delivered a lecture to the Royal Society on memory – his first and only excursion into human psychology – he had just witnessed a spectacularly public failure of memory when new texts were added to the Monument (1671–76), which he had designed with Christopher Wren. In a direct civic challenge to royal authority, these explained that the ‘Papists’ had set London's Great Fire of September 1666. This paper examines the tensions and accommodations between the City of London and Charles II that accompanied the Monument's erection; the column serves to dramatize the difficulties besetting would-be memorializers in Restoration England. It is suggested that Hooke's memory lecture must be read, not only in the light of specific political anxieties then attached to memory, but against the other ways in which he grappled with forms of signification, here treated as forms of historical witness.