This week: Borrowing from Past Ignorance Edited by: Warped Sanity  
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| Throughout history, due to scientific ignorance, there were many practices, which by today's standards are horrific. Whether your story takes place in present times or in the past, incorporating these elements can intensify the horror elements of your story. This newsletter highlights some of them, but there are many more you can draw from. |
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Premature Burial or Cremation:
Throughout history, there is evidence within many cultures, which indicate individuals were presumed dead, when in fact they were not. One such incident happened during the cholera epidemic in Guanajuato, Mexico in 1833. To prevent the spread of the disease, victims were buried quickly in above ground mausoleums. Twenty years later, the local government opened up the tombs and found that the bodies were naturally mummified. There was a body of a young girl who showed signs of being buried alive. It is suspected that she had a condition, which sometimes accompanies epilepsy, where the heartbeat lowers so low it is barely detectable.
Tales of pufferfish poisoning are another example of premature assumption of death. The toxins can be found in the pufferfish liver, gonads (ovaries and testes), intestines and skin. The toxins have been evaluated to be 1,200 times more poisonous than cyanide. If prepared properly, the fish is safe to eat. If prepared improperly, and the toxins are ingested, then the symptoms such as tingling of the lips and mouth, followed by dizziness, tingling in the extremities, problems with speaking, balance, muscle weakness and respiratory paralysis, show relatively quickly. Although tales of prolonged paralysis, are mostly a myth, it is still a horrific concept to contemplate, especially since it is more common to be cremated in Japan.
Surgical Bacteriology
American psychiatrist Henry Cotton believed that mental illness resulted from untreated infections in the body. So, he and his colleagues would first remove teeth of mental patients. If symptoms of mental illness were still evident, they assumed the illness had spread to other organs. As a result, they would remove their tonsils, and frequently spleens, colons, ovaries, and other organs. Cotton claimed an 85% success rate and received a lot of notoriety, but in reality, one out of every three patients did not survive.
Metrazol Therapy
In Metrazol Therapy, physicians induced seizures using a stimulant medication. Seizures began roughly a minute after the patient received the injection and could result in fractured bones, torn muscles and other adverse effects. The therapy was usually administered several times a week. Metrazol was withdrawn from use by the FDA in 1982. While this treatment was dangerous and ineffective, seizure therapy was the precursor to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), which is still used in some cases to treat severe depression, mania, and catatonia.
Insulin Coma Therapy
This treatment was introduced in 1927 and was used for several decades until the 1960s. In insulin coma therapy, physicians deliberately put the patient into a low blood sugar coma because they believed large fluctuations in insulin levels could alter the function of the brain. Insulin comas could last anywhere between one and four hours. Patients were given an insulin injection that caused their blood sugar to fall and the brain to lose consciousness. Risks included prolonged coma (in which the patient failed to respond to glucose), and the mortality rate varied between 1 to 10%. Electroconvulsive therapy was later introduced as a safer alternative to insulin coma therapy.
Trephination
As one of the earliest forms of mental health treatment, trephination removed a small part of the skull using an auger, bore or saw. Dated from around 7,000 years ago, this practice was likely used to relieve headaches, mental illness or even the belief of demonic possession. Not much is known about the practice due to lack of evidence.
What practices from the past, not included in this newsletter, can you add to the list of possible uses in horror writing? |
|  | Monster (18+)
If you call someone a name often enough they may soon believe it
#259585 by Andrea  |
Naively, I believed my mother when she said everything was going to be okay, as there were nice doctors who could make me just as pretty again through plastic surgery. I had yet to get beyond the time when I stopped trusting my parents and my face remained bandaged - I could pretend that behind the fabric I was normal. Everything was going to be fine because bad things didn't happen to people like me, they only took place on television.
Here stood the Dickens family’s narrow two-story home. Avoiding the porch, Alex stepped into the back “mud room”. Random buckets and other oddities littered the floor, shelves, and tabletops. Alex assumed this might be because the last of the Dickens line, “Ol’ Frickin’ Dickens”, died here, never moving out.
His screams for help are producing only muffled gurgles. The tube in his throat, which drapes gently over his chin, is preventing proper sound. The amount of tape holding the tube in place seals his lips shut. He tries biting at it, but it won’t break. Something is putting pressure on his forehead, preventing him from turning his head. Working the tube loose is not an option.
Andrea had backed herself into the far corner of the shower. It was downright stupid, she knew, to think that the disgusting arachnid would actually lunge at her- still she planned on making a hasty exit. She dared take her eyes from the spider for just a second, and felt her breath catch in her throat. In her haste, she’d neglected to close the shower curtain.
She's trying to confuse me with her slumped shoulders, sad eyes, and a weak smile, but I am an expert on reading her body language. I could tell she was lying to me. There is nothing more frightening than unexpected violence. So, I kept a look of calm pasted on my face despite the rage building up inside me.
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#2173106 by Not Available. |
Her name echoed out in the DARK WOODS from the many townsfolk that gathered to look for the little seven-year-old girl. She’d gone missing hours before. As Ashley stared into the areas her flashlight shone, she couldn’t help but think about the day Zoe had been born.
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Horror/Scary: November 21, 2018 Issue [#9238]
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