Death
Topics from the archives of the Mad Science Museum related to death. Arranged in descending chronological order.
Electrified Sheep
& Elephants on Acid
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Categories
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Heartbeat At Death (Oct. 1938)
 On October 31, 1938, John Deering took a last drag on his cigarette, sat down in a chair, and allowed a prison guard to place a black hood over his head and pin a target to his chest. Next the guard attached electronic sensors to Deering's wrists.Deering had volunteered to participate in an experiment, the first of its kind, to have his heartbeat recorded as he was shot through the chest by a firing squad. The prison physician, Dr. Stephen Besley, figured that since Deering was being executed anyway, science might as well benefit from the event. Perhaps some valuable information about the effect of fear on the heart could be learned. |
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Cocaine was the first local anesthetic used in medicine. Its use brought many benefits by allowing surgeons to avoid having to rely on more dangerous general anesthetics. Nevertheless, occasionally patients had bad reactions to the drug. In an effort to find out why this was the case, the Nebraska proctologist Edwin Katskee gave himself a large injection of cocaine on the night of 25 November 1936. He then recorded the clinical course of his symptoms in notes written on the wall of his office. As it turned out, the amount of cocaine he gave himself was so large it proved fatal. The media described his note-filled wall as his "death diary". |
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During the first decade of the twentieth century, while employed as a professor of forensic science at the State School of Science in Bucharest, Nicolae Minovici undertook a comprehensive study of death by hanging. Inspired by his research, he decided to find out, first-hand, what it would feel like to die in this way. |