Count the Dead: Coroners, Quants, and the Birth of Death as We Know It

by Stephen Berry

The global doubling of human life expectancy between 1850 and 1950 is arguably one of the most consequential developments in human history, undergirding massive improvements in human life and lifestyles. In 1850, Americans died at an average age of 30. Today, the average is almost 80. This story is typically told as a series of medical breakthroughs—Jenner and vaccination, Lister and antisepsis, Snow and germ theory, Fleming and penicillin—but the lion's share of the credit belongs to the men and women who dedicated their lives to collecting good data. Examining the development of death registration systems in the United States—from the first mortality census in 1850 to the development of the death certificate at the turn of the century— Count the Dead argues that mortality data transformed life on Earth, proving critical to the systemization of public health, casualty reporting, and human rights.

Stephen Berry shows how a network of coroners, court officials, and state and federal authorities developed methods to track and reveal patterns of dying. These officials harnessed these records to turn the collective dead into informants and in so doing allowed the dead to shape life and death as we know it today.

Genres: History, American History, Nonfiction

140 pages, Paperback

First published May 10, 2022

About the author

Librarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name.

Reviews

[Amber Upson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was informative, but the repetition killed me (pun intended, I'm no coward). I am too lazy to go back and count how many times the author used the phrase "count the dead," many times as if it were a new idea introduced in the text. It's the title of the book! We get it!

Aside from that, it seems that this was well-researched and the subject matter interested me.

[Emily Rajner · Rating 4 out of 5]

read for narratives of illness

[David Marshall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book that will enlighten readers on a subject few students of the Civil War and other conflicts are aware of.

[Paige Cook · Rating 3 out of 5]

read for history 232