This Mortal Coil: A History of Death by Andrew Doig

BLOOMSBURY, £25

This Mortal Coil does exactly what it claims, charting the causes and intricacies of death throughout human history. You may get some bemused looks when carrying the book around in public, and it’s true there are moments when you need a strong stomach, but it is far less morbid than the title might suggest.

The book is the product of four decades of research by Andrew Doig, a professor of biochemistry at Manchester University, and there is a sense that most of it was drafted before Covid arrived, with the virus receiving just a few mentions.

Other infections get rather more attention, and Doig delves into a fascinating history of scientific and medical knowledge as he charts humanity’s slow progress towards discovering the causes of disease spread and the hygiene measures and vaccines which can prevent it. Famine is also high on this list of lethal concerns for humans, and a particularly interesting section of the book offers a whistlestop education on genetic diseases.

Doig moves broadly chronologically from major causes of death of the past, like infectious disease and famine, to the non-communicable scourges of the present day. Woven through it are a series of brilliant anecdotes of individual experiments, inventions and lethal misfortunes. These human stories tell the tales of the people who succumbed to various causes of death, and the long line of scientists and medics who have attempted to work out why.

Doig’s attention to detail, personable style and clear explanations make the book easily accessible, It also raises some thoughtprovoking questions about how we define and record death, how fundamentally the things we die of have changed in recent history, and the ethical considerations around what measures we might take to avoid death in the future.