George S. Patton Jr.’s quote: “Fear kills more people than death.” Might not be a lesson about living and enjoying fearlessly but rather a very literal fact.
What is Voodoo Death?
Voodoo Death is a phenomenon of sudden death that results from a strong emotional shock.
Less than a century ago, a man named Walter Cannon was curious enough to research about sudden deaths reported in many ancient instances such as of an African, who unknowingly ate the banned wild hen, and upon realization trembled with fear and died in less than 24 hours, similarly of a Maori woman who ate a taboo fruit, died right after realization.
At first, Dr. Cannon hypothesized that these primitive practices might be because of their ignorance. He tied down this ominous and persistent fear with bodily functions such as overstimulation of adrenaline.
Diving Deeper…
To dive deeper into this phenomenon, a cruel and harsh experiment was carried out by Curt Richter on rats. He kept the rats in a water tank where they had to swim in order to keep themselves alive, their swimming time was observed to be not more than 30 minutes.
To test his hypothesis Dr. Curt trimmed the whiskers of domestic and wild rats and kept them again in the tank.
The domestic rat encountered the trimming of whisker as care and swam for 60 HOURS whereas the wild rats encountered it as a shock, become suspicious and all died in no longer than 15 minutes.
Same Stimuli but a Different Response, Why?
The trimming of whiskers is a gesture of care and nurture by the domestic rats. Whereas wild rats, after losing their whisker lost their only possible connection with the outside world and fell into a state of hopelessness.
But How Did They Die?
Hofer contributed to the decreased heart rate as a vagal phenomenon (body’s overreaction to certain triggers). Whereas Cannon simplified it to adrenaline overstimulation because the body enters into the flight response. Both have valid grounds as a life-threatening stressor will have both sympathetic and parasympathetic effects.
What’s Next?
The concurrent belief that ignorance can be an attributing factor to Voodoo death has been proved false as there have been proved instances such as :
During wars, many healthy and fit soldiers have died on the battlefields despite incurring not even a single injury, even proved by the autopsies, but rather because of the fear. Also, a considerable number of deaths have been reported by doctors about individuals who died after injecting an unlethal dosage of poison.
Ending Note:
Good news for everyone! Voodoo death mechanism has answered a very important question: “Can we kill someone without actually hurting them?” yes, and just a heads up voodoo death phenomenon is ineffective on reptiles, so pick your prey wisely.
One thought on “Voodoo Death: Scared to Death, Quite Literally.”
Ok, i was expecting a voodoo doll