How To Make A Zombie

Angel trumpet is the common name of a woody plant with beautiful pendulous flowers. This plant, which is native to South America contains various poisonous alkaloids, which if ingested, can induce a trance, terrifying hallucinogenic effects, sickness and temporary insanity. Many believe that angel trumpet, or as it is commonly known, "the devil's breath", turns people into zombies.

No Free Will

In Colombia, there is a belief that angel trumpet robs you of your free will and this sinister plant, "burundanga", as they call there, is often used by criminals who wish to make someone more compliant and do their bidding, like hand over all their money or perform a criminal action.

Yet, in Columbia, this plant has also been used for hundreds of years in religious ceremonies. And interestingly, Josef Mengel, the Nazi "angel of death" used it too, believing it to be a truth serum enabling the Nazi's to obtain information from those who were unwilling to provide the required information.

In Columbia, the police deal with over 1000 cases each year of people who are turned temporarily into zombies by angel trumpet. But how do the alkaloids in this plant bring about such effects?

The alkaloids in angel trumpet block neurotransmission in the brain, so people are not really aware of what is happening to them, or what they are doing. Then, after the drug wears off, many people experience profound amnesia.

Believe it or not, people can become so submissive when using this plant, that they help others to rob their own houses or hand over their children willingly to kidnappers. There was also one case, where three young women from Bogota smeared their breasts with the plant in order to lure men to lick them. Then, when the men were in a suitable zombified state, the women obtained bank access details.

Witches Potions

Scopolamine, one of the alkaloids in the angel trumpet plant, was also believed to be an essential ingredient of witches potions and sorcery. It seems that some of the other common effects of this substance are the feeling that you are flying and if applied to the skin, hallucinations of gods or spirits develop. The loss of self-awareness and self-control, is the part that makes you a zombie.

Books To Read


Unthinkable: What the World's Most Extraordinary Brains Can Teach Us About Our Own, by
Helen Thomson.

Dead Interesting Graveyards

Do you get creeped out when you see or even think about graveyards? As spooky as graveyards may be, they are also very interesting places connected with history or notable inhabitants. Such places can also inspire profound thoughts about life and what our existence on Earth might really mean

La Chiesa dei Morti

  Chiesa dei Morti, or the Church of the Dead, Urbania, Italy 

If you happen to journey to Urbania in central Italy, then make your way to the Baroque Church of the Dead, where you will encounter the fascinating mummies cemetery. The 18 mummified bodies have been displayed here since 1833, when the bodies of these people were exhumed and found to be mummified. Standing macabrely inside glass cases, the bodies were naturally mummified by a mould which consumed the moisture of the bodies.

The mummies are cared for by the Brotherhood of Good Death, an order founded 400 years ago. They also conduct tours where you can learn facts about the mummies, like who was murdered and which one had Down's syndrome.

Sagada "hanging coffins"

 

Sagada graveyard is located in the Philippines, north of Manilla, in a town called Banaue. It is a local custom here, for the elderly people of the village to make their own coffin before they died. After death, the coffin containing the body would be placed in a cave, or it would be attached to the face of a cliff. The idea behind the "hanging coffins" was to protect the dead from being taken by animals. 

Old Jewish Cemetery, Prague

Cemetery in the Jewish Quarter of Prague in the Czech Republic 

This cemetery located in the Jewish Quarter of Prague in the Czech Republic began to be used in the early15th century. It is uncertain how many people are buried here, but it may be as many as 100,000. There are, however, 12,000 visible tombstones.

The Jewish, Halakhah, forbade the removal of graves, and so, as the cemetery ran out of space, they were forced to remove the tombstones, add another layer soil and then replace the tombstones on top. There are about 12 layers of graves.

The Neptune Memorial Reef

Underwater gates

This underwater mausoleum for cremated remains is a man-made reef covering over 600,000 square feet (65,000 m²) of the ocean floor, at a depth of 40 feet. There are plans to build an underwater city here, 5.2 km off the coast of Key Biscayne, Florida, with underwater roads leading to a central feature with benches and statues.

Megalithic tombs, Borger-Odoorn, Netherlands

 

Megalithic tombs are above ground burial chambers built of large stone slabs (megaliths). There are many of these ancient style tombs found across Atlantic Europe and the Mediterranean, which were mostly built by Neolithic farming communities. The archaeological evidence suggests that these communities used these tombs for the long-term housing of the remains of their dead.

Wadi-us-Salaam, Najaf, Iraq

Wadi Al-Salaam is an Islamic cemetery located in Shia holy city of Najaf, Iraq. This cemetery is reputed to be the largest cemetery in the world, with millions of bodies residing in its 6 km² area. It is estimated that more than half a million bodies are interred here every year. 

Empty Cities

It is strange and somehow disturbing to think of cities and towns being empty, abandoned and devoid of life. And yet, there are places like this; cities and towns which are vacant and uninhabited and which seem lost without purpose. The reasons for these empty cities, however, are varied.

Nova Cidade de Kilamba, Angola

The new city of Kilamba in Luanda Province, Angola

Nova Cidade de Kilamba is the name of this housing development which is situated 30km from Angola's capital city, Luanda. Built by the China International Trust and Investment Corporation, this town can house 500,000 people with its 750 eight-storey apartment blocks. There are also over 100 commercial premises and 12 schools.

The development covers 5,000 hectares, and yet, it is unnaturally quiet here. The silence is almost deafening. You see, apartments here generally cost somewhere between $120,000 and $200,000 and yet, the average Angolan lives on less than $2 a day 1. There is no real middle class in Angola, a group who could actually afford to live in such a development.

Tomioka, Fukushima, Japan

The town of Tomioka in Japan is located near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was badly damaged by the earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. At the time of the disaster, the town had an estimated population of 15,839, with 6,293 households. One resident remained after the tsunami hit the area, a fifth-generation rice farmer called, Naoto Matsumura and his dog, but people are slowly moving back to the area.

Varosha, Famagusta, Cyprus

Before the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, Varosha was a thriving resort town favoured by the rich and famous. Since that time, Cyprus has been a divided country separated by a green line and Varosha, the abandoned southern quarter of the Cypriot city of Famagusta, has been an uninhabited ghost town.

Back in 1989, I stood on a nearby hill and looked with binoculars at the abandoned Varousha, which was enveloped by a high fence of barbed wire. In the years that have followed, little has changed.

People left that place in a terrible rush and if the could return, they would see the clothes that they were wearing back in the 1970s, still in the cupboard; their 1970s car in the garage and their old TV, records and radios, waiting for them.

He Survived Two Nuclear Bombs

 

His name was Tsutomu Yamaguchi and he survived the bombing of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, during World War II. But Mr Yamaguchi went on to have a long life, dying at the age of 93 in 2010.

Yamaguchi both lived and worked in Nagasaki, but in the summer of 1945, towards the end of World War II, he had been living in Hiroshima for three months, for business.

It was August 6 and Mr Yamaguchi was ready to go home to Nagasaki, when he realised that he had forgotten his hanko stamp, which he needed in order to travel. So he jumped off the bus on which he was travelling and he went back to collect his stamp.

Japenese hanko stamp

Mr Yamaguchi took another bus and then jumped off to walk to the Mitsubishi Shipyard, where he would meet colleagues before returning home by bus. The day was clear he said when he noticed the sound of a plane. Then a B-29 came into sight and dropped what appeared to be two parachutes.

There was a blinding flash and Tsutomu Yamaguchi was blown off his feet.

Little boy atomic bomb

As it turned out, this plane was the American bomber Enola Gay, which dropped the Little Boy atomic bomb, only 3 km away from where Mr Yamaguchi had been walking.

All about Mr Yamaguchi it was dark, with great clouds of ash, as he lay on the ground. His eardrums had been ruptured, he was temporarily blinded and he had severe burns on the left top half of his body. All about him were burned corpses, but Yamaguchi got up and decided to make for the train station and go home to Nagasaki.

Mr Yamaguchi returned to his hometown of Nagasaki and after he received medical attention he returned to work on August 9.

It was 11 am on August 9, when Mr. Yamaguchi was was describing his experience during the Hiroshima bombing that another bomb called Fat Man was dropped by the American bomber Bockscar, on Nagasaki.

Mr. Yamaguchi was to experience severe radiation poisoning and sudden balding this time. Even worse, the ricocheting gamma rays may have damaged his DNA, which would likely bring effects to multiple generations.  

However, Mr Yamaguchi, who had been through two nuclear explosions and his wife who had been blasted by one, went on the have three children and a pretty satisfactory life.

The patient's skin is burned in a pattern corresponding to the dark portions of a kimono worn at the time of the explosion. Japan, circa 1945

His son, Kasutoshi, died of cancer at age 58, Mrs. Yamaguchi died of cancer at age 88.

Mr. Yamaguchi lived another 65 years after those two atom bombs, dying in 2010 at the age of 93.

So far, there is no real evidence that those who survived the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who were exposed to substantial amounts of radiation and who went on to have children, had any higher incidence of congenital abnormalities than the Japanese average.

Holmes' Secret Rooms

The idea of secret rooms and passageways ignites the imagination and causes a frisson of excitement along the spine. One interesting and yet gruesome real-life story involving both secret rooms and passageways, concerns the first ever documented American serial killer, Herman Webster Mudgett (1861-1896), who is better known as H.H. Holmes.

American serial killer, Herman Webster Mudgett

Holmes was a rather handsome fellow, who began stealing corpses while he was studying to become a doctor, in order to collect the insurance money. He also began to engage in murky business deals using the name of H. H. Holmes.

Homes Horror Hotel

Holmes had married Clara Lovering in 1878 and while still married to her, married Myrta Belknapin in 1887. In 1894, he added another wife to his list, Georgiana Yoke. He also had a relationship with Julia Smythe, who became one of his victims.

 H.H. Holmes horror hotel in Chicago, USA

While living in Chicago, Holmes built a "castle", which opened in 1893 as a hotel. Downstairs, there were shops, but upstairs, there were over 100 windowless rooms, with doorways opening to brick walls, strangely angled hallways, stairways that went nowhere, doors which could only be opened on the outside and lots of hidden rooms.

When he finished the hotel, Holmes employed mostly females to work at his hotel and they were required to take out insurance policies, which Holmes paid. He was also the main beneficiary. Holmes then began his killing spree, gassing some of his victims in specially constructed air-proof rooms, installed with gas lines. The bodies would be sent by body-size laundry shoots straight to the basement. In his secret basement, he had lime-pits set up and large kilns, where he would cremate bodies.

Also found in his hidden basement, was a torture device called a rack. Some bodies he dissected and then, he sold the body parts through his contacts to medical schools.

The exact number of his victims is not known, but the numbers may be as high as 200 people. Most of the verified victims were women.

Families often came looking for their missing loved ones, but upon enquiring at Holmes' hotel, they were told that the person that they were seeking had moved away without leaving a forwarding address.

It was thought that Holmes' horror hotel had been demolished; however, under the Englewood Post Office in Chicago, part of the original basement probably still remains, as there is a section of old-style bricks showing evidence of fire damage. Makes you wonder what may lay behind?

Holmes was hanged at Moyamensing Prison, On May 7, 1896.

Jobs That Killed You!

Most of us are pretty well off these days in the jobs we have. Don't get me wrong, there is still plenty to hate and plenty of things to improve but compared to the past....well things are positively dandy.

Little Match Girls

 
How would you have fancied working at the Bryant & May match factory in Bow London during the 1800s? Cheap female labour was the norm here. You would work in a cramped room for around 14 hours straight, dipping the matchsticks into phosphorus. You would be regarded as an expendable and easily replaceable worker and you had to pay for the materials you used.

This phosphorus was a highly toxic substance, which, if used long enough in a slapdash way, would result in a “phossy jaw”. Initially you probably thought that you had a simple toothache, but eventually, your jaw would swell and disintegrate and give off a green glow. The only treatment available at this time in history was to remove the jaw bone, otherwise, the whole body would be slowly poisoned.

Archival drawing from c19th of phossy jaw

Working In A Cotton Mill

During the Industrial Revolution in Britain, cotton was a very important product. However, a cotton mill was not a safe or healthy place to work, as the filaments of cotton saturated the air. This cotton dust would eventually lead to what was commonly called the "brown lung" or in medical circles, byssinosis.

Byssinosis would lead to coughing, wheezing, lung scarring and death from infection or respiratory failure. Today, it is thought that bacteria which grew in the cotton dust had a direct role in the disease.  

Tanning Those Hides

Most of us probably take our leather shoes for granted. In the old days, though, and still in some undeveloped parts of the world, tanning animals hides was/is a hideous job that will likely kill you, or at least make you pretty sick. It was also a rather stinky trade which was generally relegated to the outskirts of town.

Cheshire Tannery Employees, Keene, New Hampshire, US

The gross skins first needed to be soaked in a mixture of water and lime for a few weeks. Then, these odorous skins were removed and the blood and fur would need to be scraped off. Keep in mind that these skins were stinky, encrusted with rotting matter and slimy to the touch.

After this, the residual lime and gunk would be removed by marinating the skin in a mixture of dog poo and water, which was often heated. Sometimes, the tanner would also have to put his hands in this wonderful soup and kneed the skin to speed up the process. The doggy-doo would soften the skins and make them more flexible for shoe or bag making.

Children often had the job of collecting the doggy-doo and they would be paid a pittance for it. And tanneries were full of smoke, chemicals and bacteria and not very good for your health or hopes of a long life.



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