This Mortal Coil: A History of Death

Abstract

“. . . for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause: there’s the respect that makes calamity of so long life.” —William Shakespeare, Hamlet In This Mortal Coil: A History of Death, British scientist Andrew Doig charts the prodigious saga of death over the past few thousand years and the various means and methods that have enabled more of us to survive longer. This book is far less macabre than the subject might suggest, however. People in France have recorded their life spans since 1816. Since that time, the life expectancy of its citizenry has more than doubled, vaulting from 41.1 years to 85.3 for women and from 39.1 years to 79.3 for men. This impressive rise—rather evenly matched in other developed countries and evident to lesser extents in less endowed regions—can be attributed to progress in medicine (led by drops in infant mortality) and to advances in other methods of disease and disaster prevention. Unfortunately, poor diet, physical inactivity, illicit indulgences, sporadic wars, transportation mishaps, mass homicides, suicides, effects of climate change, and the heap of adversities associated with abject poverty threaten to reverse the trend.