How Our Ancestors Died

How Our Ancestors Died PDF

Author: Simon Wills

Publisher: Casemate Publishers

Published: 2014-01-19

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 1783469811

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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

How Our Ancestors Died PDF

Author: Simon Wills (Maritime genealogist)

Publisher:

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13:

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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.

Too Much of a Good Thing

Too Much of a Good Thing PDF

Author: Lee Goldman

Publisher: Little, Brown Spark

Published: 2015-12-08

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0316236802

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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

Tracing Your Ancestors Through Death Records PDF

Author: Celia Heritage

Publisher: Casemate Publishers

Published: 2013-04-19

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 1783376465

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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.

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

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

Author: Rui Feijo

Publisher: Amsterdam University Press

Published: 2020-09-29

Total Pages: 342

ISBN-13: 9048544440

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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

100 Million Years of Food PDF

Author: Stephen Le

Publisher: Picador

Published: 2016-02-02

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 1250050421

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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. Travelling around the world to places as far-flung as Vietnam, Kenya, India, and the US, Stephen Le introduces us to people who are growing, cooking, and eating food using both traditional and modern methods, striving for a sustainable, healthy diet. In clear, compelling arguments based on scientific research, Le contends that our ancestral diets provide the best first line of defense in protecting our health and providing a balanced diet. Fast-food diets, as well as strict regimens like paleo or vegan, in effect highjack our biology and ignore the complex nature of our bodies. In 100 Million Years of Food Le takes us on a guided tour of evolution, demonstrating how our diets are the result of millions of years of history, and how we can return to a sustainable, healthier way of eating.

'Til Death Do Us Part

'Til Death Do Us Part PDF

Author: Janet Few

Publisher:

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 28

ISBN-13: 9781921956461

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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.

Death's Summer Coat

Death's Summer Coat PDF

Author: Brandy Schillace

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2016-01-15

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1681770938

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Death is something we all confront—it touches our families, our homes, our hearts. And yet we have grown used to denying its existence, treating it as an enemy to be beaten back with medical advances.We are living at a unique point in human history. People are living longer than ever, yet the longer we live, the more taboo and alien our mortality becomes. Yet we, and our loved ones, still remain mortal. People today still struggle with this fact, as we have done throughout our entire history. What led us to this point? What drove us to sanitize death and make it foreign and unfamiliar?Schillace shows how talking about death, and the rituals associated with it, can help provide answers. It also brings us closer together—conversation and community are just as important for living as for dying. Some of the stories are strikingly unfamiliar; others are far more familiar than you might suppose. But all reveal much about the present—and about ourselves.

The Buried Soul

The Buried Soul PDF

Author: Timothy Taylor

Publisher: Beacon Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 9780807046722

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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.