From Taphophobia to Resuscitation; Unraveling the Shocking History of Resuscitation

8 months ago (Edited)

In the realm of science, our understanding has evolved, offering solutions to various challenges that once plagued humanity. In our world now, there are so many things that keep people awake, most being financial, and others something related to stress, anxiety, or health but not the fear of being buried alive because they are thought to be dead.

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You might see this as ridiculous because you believe that the necessary checking will be done to confirm a person dead but this wasn't how it was in the past. People were scared and have anxiety over being buried alive, what is known as Tapaphobia. One major case of beng buried alive was that of Octavia Hatcher in 1891 who was buried alive after being pronounced dead.

She had suffered months of severe headache, fever, and fatigue, and was actually suffering from a sleeping sickness. After she was buried, people started exhibiting the same symptoms and they woke up after. This made the family of octavia to dig her grave to check if she was still alive as it was visible that she was buried alive only to find that the inner lining of the coffin had been torn, with her nails bent and bloody. but then, she had died in the coffin. With this happening, people had to invent coffins that could be opened from the inside, and some of the coffins had alarm bells outside so people could come rescue them if the bell was heard.

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Science have been intrigued with death and bringing people back from its cold hands, and if we are to be sincere, a lot has been done, starting with the Royal Humane Society in 1774 which was focusing on resuscitating people who had drowned so as to bring them back to life. To do this, they pumped hot tobacco smoke through the anus of the person and it was believed that the heat would bring them back to life. Although not much success was recorded for this procedure, but people used it then and we cannot completely shut the Royal Humane Society off because they also encouraged effective treatments like shocking people back to consciousness with electricity.

Asides from the Royal Humane Society, scientists have tested electricity and its impact on dead bodies such as the case of Luigi Galvani who tested electricity and its ability to cause movements in bodies of dead frogs as electricity would cause the limb tissues of lifeless frogs to twitch. His brother Aldini Galvani tried it on human's dead body and these researches led to the discovery of action potentials in living things.

This made us know that electricity and biology work together with electrical signals powering our activities from thoughts, heartbeat, and neural activity. Thanks to modern technology, we can now use electricity to reset heartbeats and resuscitate people who are not biologically dead such as cases of Lazarus syndrome.

In our journey through scientific exploration, we have not only alleviated historical fears but also developed life-saving techniques that showcase the resilience and progress of human understanding and ingenuity.