Scared to Death......Literally

gogo

Don't know if you will be bothered with these but i think that they are really cool (cool in the interesting kinda way, not the murder kinda way).
Two true stories of being literally scared to death.

"About 150 years ago,a group of french doctors investigating the strenght of the imagination got permission from the emperor, Napoleon III, to carry out an experiment. The guinea-pig was a convict who had been condemned to death.
The man was blind-folded, strapped to a table, and told that he was going to be bled to death. Near his dropping head was a vessel of water, fitted up with a siphon device which produced a steady trivkling noise. One of the doctors took a needle and made a superficial scratch across the man's throat.
Everthing was quiet, except for the soft drip, drip of the water. Within six minutes the man was dead."

"Another case of a man being literally scared to death occured at a scottish mediacl scjool in the latter half of the last century. At the school was a porter who had managed to make himself unpopular with the students. One day, fed up with this grumpy, disobliging man, the students decided to get there own back by giving him a good fright.
late that evening they lured him into the anatomical room where, after holding a mock trial, they solemnly sentenced him to be beheaded. The terrified porter was led over to a quit corner where the students had rigged up a sinster looking executioners block. leaning against it was a hugh, gleaming axe. The porter was given a good view of these props before being blind folded.
Then, in complete and erie silence, they forced him to his knees and laid his head on the lock. The 'exectioner' struck him sharply across the back of the neck with a wet towel ...... and when joke over, the man was lifted to his feet, he was dead."

---

Ok, technically it could have been that they died from heart attacks from sheer fright.
But as the book points out neither of them were threatened with any real danger. "It was the overtime working of their imagination that actually killed them."

these stories are from a really old horror bbok i have and they have always fasinated me, it brings a whole new meaning to " you scared me half to death".
Anyway you might be interested, you might not,

the_obsolete

That's bloody crazy...letting their own imaginations kill them pretty much...

Fysh

I'd say both cases would be likely to have ended up as heart attacks induced by nervous stress....this isn't a doctors diagnosis or anything, but from what I understand of human reactions to such circumstances, the stress from the perceived threat (ie imagination) can be enough to cause heart failure.

Faintly interesting - is there anything online about this book, or any of the stories you mention?

gogo

No, nothing that i can find online, the book is called the' Weekend book of ghosts and horror'

Looks like it is associated with some magazine. It was published in 1981. It isn't a great book, but i liked the stories above.

brucecampbell

hey new to this site and all, but could you maybe tell me the name of the author?its real cool...a bit like the original "dracula" legend..seems that dracula was a romanian who killed the turks and stuck them on spikes. thru the neck, in front of his castle... the natives named him "dracul" (i've probably spelt that wrong) it translates to satan from what i remember...

but could you please tell me the authors name?or the publisher??

gogo

Product Details: From amazon
Paperback 128 pages (1981)
Publisher: Published by Harmsworth Publications for Associated Newspapers Ltd
ISBN: 0851441785
Category(ies): Horror

weekend is indeed a magazine, but from where i don't know (probably america). Amazon have a few copies of it.