Mortality

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Repeated implications that rodent populations (and human and bacterial populations) are governed by some sort of nearly intelligent deterministic Malthusian process. For example, a claim that plague epidemics among rodents come about because they are needed to control rodent populations. No. They may come about as a result of increasing population density, but nature does not care if a population of rats (or people) starves in its entirety or is only almost wiped out by disease. Both happen in nature. He faced his mortality with a steadfast gaze, as well as his trademark wit, humour, and incessant curiosity. His real most deep-seated fear was of losing his ability to express himself, of not being able to talk or to write.

Mortality | SpringerLink International Handbook of Adult Mortality | SpringerLink

The Great Plague is one of the most compelling events in human history, even more so now, when the notion of plague—be it animal or human—has never loomed larger as a contemporary public concern His essay about what it means to a writer to lose his voice is included in this book. His malady was esophageal cancer. In his bestselling books, Atul Gawande, a practicing surgeon, has fearlessly revealed the struggles of his profession. Now he examines its ultimate limitations and failures – in his own practices as well as others’– as life draws to a close. And he discovers how we can do better. He follows a hospice nurse on her rounds, a geriatrician in his clinic, and reformers turning nursing homes upside down. He finds people who show us how to have the hard conversations and how to ensure we never sacrifice what people really care about. The last section of Mortality is made up of "fragmentary jottings", which the publisher notes "were left unfinished at the time of the author's death". One of these notes reads: "If I convert it's because it's better a believer dies than that an atheist does." He does not convert of course. He remains true to the ideas that animated his life, and to the idea of what words can do.Thankfully, as a respite, Kelly intersperses the plague-death descriptions with some fascinating discussions about ancillary topics. One of those is filth, and I loved how Kelly showed the evolution from antiquity’s “ingenious sanitation techniques” – underground sewers, aqueducts, and public bathhouses – to Middle Age Europeans shouting “look out below” three times before emptying chamber pots onto the street. There is also a section on the Flagellants, who traveled hither and yon beating themselves in a public display that straddled hyper-religiosity and sexual kink. The book contains several essays inspired by his condition published in his usual venue of “Vanity Fair”. At first, he surprises himself by a relatively unemotional outlook: Hitchens was known as a loudmouth, and of course the vicious irony of his particular cancer does not escape him. But as I read more of his work this past month, his compassion - a fierce, knight-errant compassion - became evident. This time, on the subject of how we talk to people who are unwell, he is fighting for himself at least as much as for others: the fear, vulnerability and weariness show. "...nor do I walk around sporting a huge lapel button that says ASK ME ABOUT [STAGE FOUR METASTASIZED OESOPHEGEAL CANCER], AND ONLY ABOUT THAT" Insert disease name as applicable. If everyone who reads this book remembers that in conversations with those they don't know well, the world will be a bit more tolerable for a lot of people who already have more than enough to tolerate. I realize that these may seem like small complaints, but I have high expectations for a nonfiction book. I have a hard time with it because I went to this book to learn, and I have difficulty trusting an author's research and expertise on a topic when he cannot bother to understand the meaning of the word "literally".

Mortality by Christopher Hitchens | Goodreads

Here’s the scoop: Barring accidents, and disclaiming by the insurance company, most of is are going to end up as drug addicts. We’ll be looking forward expectantly not to a cure for whatever terminal bug or virus or faulty organ we might contain, but for the next fix of Codeine, or OxyContin, or Morphine (for me it’s Gabapentanine, which provides blissful spinal pain relief and is, of course, highly addictive). The prospect of a remedy in the offing for what ails us isn’t nearly as significant as the supertanker of pain bearing down on us in a very narrow channel elderly existence. There is very considerable diversity both within and among countries in the mortality experience of adults, and this diversity is well captured, described and explained in the course of this book. This wide-ranging and exhaustive collection of studies of adult mortality gives a fascinating account. A complete analysis of the characteristics of adult morality and its extension to the morbid process preceding death, but above all the involvement of scholars from various disciplines, make this book an important reference point not only for the academic world – researchers, teachers and students – but also for the political world and those working in the health services. Its contents are particularly valuable for implementing health and social policies that aim to reduce the consequences of inequality and thus to provide better health for all".For more practical considerations than the Hitchens book, let me recommend "Being Mortal" by Dr. Atul Gawande....