This Mortal Coil Audiobook Libro.fm

Description

Dementia heart failure and cancer are now the leading causes of death in industrialised nations where life expectancy is mostly above 80 A century ago life expectancy was about 50 and people died mainly from infectious diseases In the Middle Ages death was mostly caused by famine plague childbirth and war In the Palaeolithic period where our species spent 95 of its time we frequently died from violence and accidents
Causes of death have changed irrevocably across time In the course of a few centuries we have gone from a world where disease or violence were likely to strike anyone at any age and where famine could be just one bad harvest away to one where excess food is more of a problem than a lack of it Why is this Why dont we die from plague scurvy or smallpox any more And why are heart attacks Alzheimers and cancer so prevalent today
This Mortal Coil explains why we died in the past the reasons we die now and how causes of death are about to profoundly change University of Manchester Professor Andrew Doig provides an eyeopening global portrait of death throughout time looking at particular causes of death from infectious disease to genetic disease violence to diet who they affected and the people who made it possible to overcome them