How Our Ancestors Died

Author: Simon Wills
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1783469811
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 341

Book Description
What were the principal causes of death in the past? Could your ancestor have been affected? How was disease investigated and treated, and what did our ancestors think about the illnesses and the accidents that might befall them? Simon Willss fascinating survey of the diseases that had an impact on their lives seeks to answer these questions. His graphic, detailed account offers an unusual and informative view of the threats that our ancestors lived with and died of. He describes the common causes of death—cancer, cholera, dysentery, influenza, malaria, scurvy, smallpox, stroke, tuberculosis, typhus, yellow fever, venereal disease and the afflictions of old age. Alcoholism is included, as are childbirth and childhood infections, heart disease, mental illness and dementia. Accidents feature prominently road and rail accidents, accidents at work and death through addiction and abuse is covered as well as death through violence and war.Simon Willss work gives a vivid picture of the hazards our ancestors faced and their understanding of them. It also reveals how life and death have changed over the centuries, how medical science has advanced so that some once-mortal illnesses are now curable while others are just as deadly now as they were then. In addition to describing causes of death and setting them in the context of the times, his book shows readers how to find and interpret patient records, death certificates and other documents in order to gain an accurate impression of how their ancestors died.

How Our Ancestors Died

Author: Simon Wills (Maritime genealogist)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Death
Languages : en
Pages : 214

Book Description
What were the principal causes of death in the past? What did our ancestors think about the illnesses and the accidents that might befall them? Wills describes the common causes of death-- disease, alcoholism, childhood infections, accidents-- and reveals how life and death have changed over the centuries, how medical science has advanced so that some once-mortal illnesses are now curable while others are just as deadly now as they were then.

Morbus

Author: Rosemary A. Chorzempa
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Death
Languages : en
Pages : 24

Book Description
"The terms found in this work are the ones seen as the most common causes of death in eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe and America. Almost all of these causes of death are diseases. Terms such as 'died in a fire, ' 'murdered, ' or 'fell into the river, ' need no further explanation. The diseases that killed our ancestors do need explanations as we are usually not very familiar with them any longer.

We Are Our Ancestors

Author: Richard F. Weaver
Publisher: Dorrance Publishing
ISBN: 1434992381
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 157

Book Description

Too Much of a Good Thing

Author: Lee Goldman
Publisher: Little, Brown Spark
ISBN: 0316236802
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 285

Book Description
The dean of Columbia University's medical school explains why our bodies are out of sync with today's environment and how we can correct this to save our health. Over the past 200 years, human life-expectancy has approximately doubled. Yet we face soaring worldwide rates of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, mental illness, heart disease, and stroke. In his fascinating new book, Dr. Lee Goldman presents a radical explanation: The key protective traits that once ensured our species' survival are now the leading global causes of illness and death. Our capacity to store food, for example, lures us into overeating, and a clotting system designed to protect us from bleeding to death now directly contributes to heart attacks and strokes. A deeply compelling narrative that puts a new spin on evolutionary biology, Too Much of a Good Thing also provides a roadmap for getting back in sync with the modern world.

Tracing Your Ancestors Through Death Records

Author: Celia Heritage
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1783376465
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 220

Book Description
Of all family history sources, death records are probably the least used by researchers. They are, however, frequently the most revealing of records, giving a far greater insight into our ancestors' lives and personalities than those records created during their lifetime.Celia Heritage leads readers through the various types of death records, showing how they can be found, read and interpreted and how to glean as much information as possible from them. In many cases, they can be used as a starting point for developing your family history research into other equally rewarding areas.This highly readable handbook is packed with useful information and helpful research advice. In addition, a thought-provoking final chapter looks into the repercussions of death its effects on the surviving members of the family and the fact that a premature death could sometimes affect the family for generations to come.

'Til Death Do Us Part

Author: Janet Few
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781921956461
Category : Death
Languages : en
Pages : 28

Book Description
This booklet examines a wide variety of possible causes of death for our ancestors, describing their symptoms and prognoses. It also suggests records that may be used to provide information about how an ancestor died. You'll find a timeline is included which outlines some major British epidemics. In the absence of a definite cause of death for a particular individual, we can at least gain an impression of the major killers of their time.

The Buried Soul

Author: Timothy Taylor
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 9780807046722
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 372

Book Description
Do cannibals exist? Is there evidence for contemporary human sacrifice? What are vampires? The Buried Soul charts the story of the human response to death from prehistory to the present day. At some moment in human history, our ancestors invented "death." Retracing four million years, this book investigates the many ways that humans, in facing death, first understood what it was to be alive. Their dramatic confrontation with mortality survives in early accounts of sacrifices, in blindfolded bodies preserved in peat bogs, and in the elaborate burials of disabled or deformed individuals among Neanderthals and the people of the Ice Age.Timothy Taylor has spent his life sifting through the relics of encounters with death. In The Buried Soul, he gathers evidence of how the ancients saw their universe and asks how we came to have not only a sense of the afterlife but also an image of the soul. After we began to speak but before we could write, Taylor suggests that early humans, in an astonishing conceptual leap, divided the body from the spirit that animated it. Rituals arose that attempted to placate, tempt, scapegoat, destroy, or contain this potentially malevolent spirit. Death was seen as a form of birth that set loose not only souls but also deities. Appeasing them required rites so powerful they have echoed down through the ages to make macabre new puzzles for archaeologists and forensic scientists.In Taylor's radical investigation of the human soul we encounter vampirism, cannibalism, near-death experiences, modern-day human sacrifice, and modern mummification. His search spans all of human prehistory and history through to the present and interweaves the author's own experience of the bewilderment of death.

The Dead as Ancestors, Martyrs, and Heroes in Timor-Leste

Author: Rui Feijo
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
ISBN: 9048544440
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 342

Book Description
During the 24-year Indonesian occupation of Timor-Leste, thousands of people died or were killed in circumstances that did not allow the required death rituals to be performed at the time. Since the country attained independence in 1999, families have consequently devoted significant time, effort and resources to fulfilling their obligations to the dead. These obligations are accorded particular significance due to the fact that the dead are ascribed agency and can play a benevolent or malevolent role in the lives of the living. Such grassroots initiatives run in parallel with, and reveal a range of different attitudes towards, official initiatives that seek to transform particular dead bodies into public symbols of heroism, sacrifice and nationhood. This book focuses on the dynamic interplay between the potent presence of the dead in everyday life and their symbolic usefulness in wider processes of state and nation formation.

100 Million Years of Food

Author: Stephen Le
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1250050421
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 329

Book Description
A fascinating tour through the evolution of the human diet and how we can improve our health by understanding our complicated history with food. There are few areas of modern life that are burdened by as much information and advice, often contradictory, as our diet and health: eat a lot of meat, eat no meat; whole grains are healthy, whole grains are a disaster; eat everything in moderation; eat only certain foods--and on and on. In 100 Million Years of Food, biological anthropologist Stephen Le explains how cuisines of different cultures are a result of centuries of evolution, finely tuned to our biology and surroundings. Today many cultures have strayed from their ancestral diets, relying instead on mass-produced food often made with chemicals that may be contributing to a rise in so-called Western diseases, such as cancer, heart disease, and obesity.