Zombicology

A letter to the editor of The Economist, January 7, 2010:

SIR – When I was a medical student one of the most popular lectures was given by an expatriate Haitian professor who explained the pharmacology that created real zombies (“Invasion of the living dead”, December 19th). Unrepentant troublemakers in small Haitian villages were sometimes dealt with by a shaman, who would prepare a powder from the skin of a blowfish mixed with ground glass. This was surreptitiously placed on the doorstep of the home of the victim, whose bare feet rubbed and absorbed the toxin.

The active ingredient of this poison was tetrodotoxin, a neurotoxin which can paralyse and reduce breathing and heart rates to undetectable levels while preserving consciousness. The victim fell ill and “died”, to be buried in a wooden coffin. The night of the funeral, the shaman exhumed the “corpse” and took it away to his home. If the victim was fortunate (or maybe not) the toxin wore off, but the shaman then kept him stupefied with “zombie cucumber”, or jimson weed, which contains the hypnotic drug scopolamine. Zombies were used as slaves by the shamans, but occasionally escaped and returned to their villages. Imagine the power this gave to the elite: anyone who crossed their path could not merely be killed, but punished in the afterlife as well.

Dr Philip Early
Fresno, California