Five years ago the University of Crete established a postgraduate training course in public health. I’m here at the invitation of the course director, Professor Anastas (Tassos) Philalithis, to join in a review of the course, accompanied by colleagues from the UK, Sweden, and Canada.
Public health has not, traditionally, been strong in Greek universities (the Athens School of Public Health is part of the Ministry of Health, not Education). The creation of the course was therefore a very welcome development. In the short time that it has been going, it has attracted large numbers of students (and also attracted some very talented staff who had been working abroad). The Medical School here at the University of Crete has a spectacular modern campus, with a view of the mountains and sea that must inspire great thoughts! Although we are only half way through the process, we have had a chance to talk to the extremely motivated students and to look at their dissertations , all of which are very impressive.

Crete has a special place n the geography of public health. Cretan researchers participated in the landmark Seven Countries Study. The study recruited men aged between 48 and 59 and followed them up from 1958 to 1970. At that time, remarkably little was known about the causes of cardiovascular diseases. The Seven Countries Study was far ahead of its time, using standardised data instruments and analyses. It included countries with some of the highest and lowest mortality rates known anywhere at that time. By comparing risk factors in Karelia with those in Crete, the research team discovered the key role played by diet, in particular lipids, in the genesis of this disease. In due course this study, along with others, would confirm the status of the traditional Cretan diet, with its olive oil and high levels of fresh fruit and vegetables, now considered the healthiest anywhere in the world.


Of course, Crete is a Mediterranean island, benefiting from the Mediterranean climate and culture. The main square in Heraklion has a reminder of this shared culture, with a bust of one of it’s most famous sons, Doménicos Theotokópoulos, better known as El Greco. Although born here, he spent time in Venice and Rome before finally settling in the Spanish city of Toledo, where many of his greatest works were painted.

Unfortunately, as in other parts of the Mediterranean, the traditional Cretan lifestyle is under threat from the forces of globalisation. The diet is giving way to fast food, the growth of motor vehicles is reducing the amount of physical activity that people take (and leading to an enormous number of premature deaths from traffic injuries, in part because of a widespread rejection of the concepts of seatbelts and motorcycle crash helmets), and obesity rates are increasing rapidly. However, perhaps the greatest problem, and the one that can be addressed most easily, is the high rate of smoking.

I watched someone smoke three cigarettes, one after the other, at breakfast in the hotel yesterday morning. Every bus shelter has large advertisements for cigarettes, clearly designed to attract new smokers among Cretan adolescents. As the pictures here show, there are health warnings but they are very difficult to see. The result – death rates from cardiovascular disease and cancer are now rising in Crete and, as we showed in a recent paper looking at regional patterns of mortality in the Mediterranean countries, in many other places that traditionally had a health advantage.

The tragedy is that many Greek politicians do not seem to have understood what is happening to the health of their population. The public health service remains focussed on traditional hygiene. There is still no proper career structure for public health professionals. Although there are some world class public health researchers, they have so far had to go abroad for their postgraduate training and many have not returned. There are few funds for research training, except those available from the European Union. The health insurance funds, that might be expected to show some interest in preventing illness and ensuring that the care they pay for is effective, take little interest as, when faced with rising costs, they simply increase their deficits and from time to time ask the government to bail them out. Until now the gods have been kind to the Greeks, blessing them with a long life expectancy. It was easy to believe that a modern public health workforce was a luxury. Hopefully, before it is too late, Greece’s political leaders will realise that it is not. When they do, the University of Crete is well-placed to rise to the challenge.

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One of the things I enjoy about Greece, as a non-Greek speaker, is spotting the many words of Greek origin that have made it into English. The emergency exits in the university bear signs labelled “exodus”. The labels on the fire extinguishers begin with “pyros”. The wings of the university building are Pteriga (as in Hymenoptera – bees and wasps – or Pterodactyl (wing/ fingers)). I was therefore fascinated to learn from Tassos that, back in the 1950s, Xenophon Zolotas, an eminent Greek economist, had developed the art of making speeches to the international financial bodies, ostensibly in English but using virtually entirely words of Greek origin. One of his speeches, to the IBRD, is reproduced here. Another can be found by clicking on his name above.
I always wished to address this Assembly in Greek, but realized that it would have been indeed "Greek" to all present in this room. I found out, however, that I could make my address in Greek which would still be English to everybody. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, l shall do it now, using with the exception of articles and prepositions, only Greek words.
Kyrie, I eulogize the archons of the Panethnic Numismatic Thesaurus and the Ecumenical Trapeza for the orthodoxy of their axioms, methods and policies, although there is an episode of cacophony of the Trapeza with Hellas. With enthusiasm we dialogue and synagonize at the synods of our didymous organizations in which polymorphous economic ideas and dogmas are analyzed and synthesized. Our critical problems such as the numismatic plethora generate some agony and melancholy. This phenomenon is characteristic of our epoch. But, to my thesis, we have the dynamism to program therapeutic practices as a prophylaxis from chaos and catastrophe. In parallel, a Panethnic unhypocritical economic synergy and harmonization in a democratic climate is basic. I apologize for my eccentric monologue. I emphasize my euharistia to you, Kyrie to the eugenic and generous American Ethnos and to the organizes and protagonists of his Amphictyony and the gastronomic symposia.