Death by laughter

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The Death of Pietro Aretino by Anselm Feuerbach (1854)

The death from laughter (rarely also: Lachtod ) was to the 19th century described as a rare form of death. In fact, laughter can be the trigger for deaths, but these are then caused by existing illnesses. As a rule, cardiac arrest or asphyxiation ( asphyxia ) occurs, which are triggered by a fit of laughter or an emotional spasm . Incidents of sudden death from explosive or prolonged laughter that have been reported since ancient times alone are legends and anecdotes .

The colloquial expression "sich totlachen" ("laugh yourself to death"), which is common in German-speaking countries , is used to express that a process or a statement is perceived as particularly funny or ridiculous. The expression has an equivalent in the English and French language areas in the formulation "to die laughing" or "to die of laughter" or "mort de rire". These formulations show in a humorous way that laughter stimulates many muscles in the body (especially the diaphragm ), which can be perceived as painful in long-lasting laughing fits. The expression: "Keep your stomach laughing" is probably based on the context.

Medical background

Laughter can have a negative effect on body functions. Conversely, existing pathologies can also lead to fits of laughter. Laughter can trigger syncope . Laughter can also induce cataplexy , which in turn can lead to trauma . Cerebral infarctions (damage to the pons and medulla oblongata ) can cause pathological convulsions of laughter. Gelastic ( epileptic ) seizures can also lead to unreasonable fits of laughter, which are based on focal lesions on the hypothalamus ( tuber cinereum ).

A sensational recent death that was accompanied by a laughing attack is now considered medically clear. A bricklayer from King's Lynn , Norfolk , 50-year-old Alex Mitchell, died on March 24, 1975 in a 30-minute fit of laughter while watching the British comedy television series The Goodies (episode: The Kung Fu Kapers ). The deceased's widow, Nessie Mitchell, wrote to the main characters of the comedy show (Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie) after her husband's death to thank them for the positive memory of the husband's death:

"My last memory of my husband is looking at him and hearing his laughter at your program."

"The last memory of my husband is how I looked at him and heard him laugh at your show."

- From : The Daily Telegraph of June 21, 2012

After the deceased's granddaughter, Lisa Corke, was diagnosed with the rare hereditary arrhythmia Long QT Syndrome in 2012 , experts now suspect that this disease was the cause of Mitchell's death.

Historical reports

Reports of laugh deaths have existed since ancient times. As recently as the 19th century, medical professionals assumed that laughter itself could be the cause of death. In the large, complete Universal Lexicon of All Sciences and Arts by Johann Heinrich Zedler from the first half of the 18th century as well as in Johann Theodor Jablonski's General Lexicon of Arts and Sciences from 1748, the following was described:

"... like through the use of Apii risus or herbae Sardoniae by überflüßigen use of Saffrans udg can be verursachet which laughter of risus Sardonius genennet, and finally geendiget with great pain of death."

- Johann Theodor Jablonski : General Lexicon of the Arts and Sciences

In 1746, Ernst Anton Nicolai (1722–1802) described the negative consequences of uncontrolled laughter through loss of physical-mental balance, which could lead to fainting or death through laughter. The reason is that the right ventricle “cannot completely get rid of its blood”. The collection of exquisite treatises published in 1806 on the use of medical practitioners sees the rupture of the spleen as a fatal result of violent laughter. The origin of the expression "holding your side laughing" is probably related to this. And the medicine professor Michael von Lenhossek (1773-1840) stated in 1825:

"... laughter has a detrimental effect on full-blooded people and on those individuals who have a tendency to inflammatory diseases or apoplexy, who are very irritable and of a delicate physique, who suffer from lung diseases, coughing up blood, vomiting of blood and other haemorrhages ... women giving birth and women who have recently given birth, and bey existing incidents and hernias . Laughter must finally be avoided altogether in people who suffer from heart disease and anevrysms . Many cases have been recorded where laughter caused sudden death. "

- Representation of the human mind in its relationship to spiritual and physical life: for doctors and non-doctors of higher education , Volume 2, Carl Gerold, 1825

In 1854 by William Löbe (1815-1891) published Illustrated Lexicon of the Entire Economics. For all stands , several fatal or very health-damaging consequences of excessive laughter are listed:

“With laughter, however, measure and time must be kept; Because the idioms: laughing yourself sick, laughing hump-backed, wanting to burst with laughter, etc., are not entirely out of thin air. For when laughing the blood penetrates to the throat, head, lungs, and heart, and if this is done in excess and too violently, very dire consequences can arise from it; a chest or head vein can jump, you can have a diaphragmatic inflammation, a hernia or goiter, or you can expose your jaws. "

Traditional cases of alleged death by laughing

The laughing death in fiction (selection)

  • The character Kenny McCormick dies in the South Park episode of the fifth season (Scott Tenorman Must Die) of a laughing fit while watching a TV video.
  • Fulton, a friend of Jerry's, dies of a laughing fit in the Seinfeld episode "The Stand-In".
  • The Batman opponent The Joker kills his victims according to a comic by Alan Moore ("The Killing Joke") with a laughing poison, which makes them laugh and die with a grin.
  • In the 12th episode of the first season of the pseudo-documentary series 1000 Ways to Die , a man dies of a fit of laughter over a joke.
  • In a sketch by Monty Python ( The Funniest Joke in the World ) , during World War II, the British military used a joke so good that anyone who reads or hears it dies as a lethal weapon against German soldiers.
  • A poem by Jalāl ad-Dīn ar-Rūmī (Dying, Laughing) , translated by Coleman Barks , tells of laughing death.
  • Several people die laughing in Lord Dunsany's The Three Infernal Jokes .
  • In the cartoon / real film mix Wrong Game with Roger Rabbit , the private detective Eddie Valiant manages to make several evil weasels laugh each other to death.
  • In the first season of the animated series Danger Mouse , one episode is called "The Laughing Death" ( The Laughing ).
  • In the two -part TV film Two Santas , Hilmar, played by Bastian Pastewka , tells a joke that, according to his own statement, he has already told seniors several times, and so far someone has always died of laughter. In the film, however, all those present survive.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Laughing pictures, sediments of the comic in early modern art in: Roland Kanz: Das Komische in der Kunst , Böhlau Verlag, Cologne Weimar 2007, ISBN 3-412-07206-0 , p. 26, limited preview in the Google book search
  2. ↑ In Francisco de Quevedo's work Los Sueños several allegorical deaths are mentioned, including the laughing death , according to Gerald Stieg and Jean Marie Valentin: A poet needs ancestors: Elias Canetti and the European tradition , files of the Paris Symposium, 16. – 18. November 1995, in: Yearbook for International German Studies , Volume 44, H. Lang, Bern Berlin et al. 1997, p. 108
  3. ↑ Neuphilologische Nachlese, series of publications in the magazine Moderne Sprachen of the Association of Austrian New Philologists , Association of Austrian New Philologists (ed.), 1996, p. 50
  4. ↑ Herbert Renz-Polster and Steffen Krautzig: Basic textbook internal medicine: compact-tangible-understandable , Elsevier, Urban & Fischer, 2012, ISBN 978-3-437-59210-2 , p. 39, limited preview in the Google book search
  5. ↑ Bettina Schmitz and Barbara Tettenborn: Paroxysmal disorders in neurology , Springer, 2006, ISBN 978-3-540-26665-5 , p. 144, limited preview in the Google book search
  6. ↑ Günter Krämer: Epilepsy from A - Z: Understanding medical terms, TRIAS medical advice , Georg Thieme Verlag, 2005, ISBN 978-3-8304-3229-6 , p. 185
  7. ↑ Goodies' fan Alex Mitchell 1975 laughter death 'solved' , June 22, 2012, BBC
  8. ↑ a b Anita Singh, Man who died laughing at Goodies had Long QT syndrome , June 21, 2012, The Daily Telegraph . In English
  9. ↑ Michael Fiam: The function of laughter and smile in German literature. An investigation based on selected works , diploma thesis, 2003, p. 5f.
  10. ↑ Johann Theodor Jablonski: General Lexicon of Arts and Sciences: Or clear description of the realm of nature, the heavens and heavenly bodies, the air, the earth, together with the known plants, animals, stones and ores, the sea and those living in it Creatures; The same of all human actions, state-right-war policies, household and scholarly business, handling and trades, including an explanation of the art-words and speech-styles occurring there , Hartung, 1748, p. 571, restricted preview in the Google book search
  11. ↑ Karlheinz Barck, Martin Fontius (Ed.), Aesthetic Basic Concepts (ÄGB): historical dictionary in seven volumes, Volume 3, ISBN 978-3-476-00913-5 , Metzler, 2001, p. 358
  12. ^ Ernst Anton Nicolai and Christian G. Koetschke: Abhandlung von dem Lachen , Lüderwald, 1746, p. 52, limited preview in the Google book search
  13. ^ Collection of selected treatises on the use of practical doctors , Volume 89, Dyck, Leipzig 1806, p. 521, limited preview in the Google book search
  14. ↑ also: "burst the page with laughter": Collection of selected treatises on the use of practical doctors , Volume 89, Dyck, 1806, p. 521, limited preview in the Google book search
  15. ↑ a b Michael von Lenhossek: Representation of the human mind in its relationships to the spiritual and physical life: for doctors and non-doctors of higher education , Volume 2, Carl Gerold, 1825, p. 309, limited preview in the Google book search
  16. ^ William Löbe: Illustrirtes Lexikon der Gesamt Wirtschaftswunde: For all stands , Volume 3, O. Wigand, 1854, p. 294, limited preview in the Google book search
  17. ^ Paul N. Morris: Patronage and Piety: Montserrat and the Royal House of Medieval Catalonia-Aragon . ( Memento of March 4, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) 2000, p. 8 (English).
  18. ↑ Folke Gernert: Francisco Delicados "Retrato de la Lozana Andaluza" and Pietro Aretino's "Sei giornate" , edition 77 of: Cologne Romanist Works , Librairie Droz, 1999, ISBN 978-2-600-00365-0 , p. 18, limited Preview in Google Book Search
  19. ^ Heinrich Ernst Pöschl (ed.): Thusnelda. Magazine for the education and entertainment of youth; especially the female , Volume 5, Büreau der Thusnelda, 1841, p. 34, limited preview in the Google book search
  20. ↑ Jonny Wilkes: Has anyone ever died of laughter? ( July 7, 2015 memento on the Internet Archive ) on Historyextra.com, September 2, 2014, Immediate Media Company. (English)
  21. ↑ Florian Herrmann: Strategies of depicting death in the Mark Passion: A comparison of the history of literature , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 2009, ISBN 978-3-525-55011-3 , p. 270, limited preview in Google book search
  22. ↑ 9. Laughed himself to death , in: 10 truly bizarre Victorian deaths , December 25, 2013, BBC . In English
  23. ↑ Modern Despair. Death by laughing while cutting your hair in: Adolf Neustadt (di Adolph Friedrich Richter): Pannonia. World and time paintings for instruction and entertainment , Ed. Ig. Ad. Schaiba, 7th year, Preßburg 1843, pp. 54f., Limited preview in the Google book search
  24. ↑ Wolfgang Christoph Dessler: Wolfgang Christoph Deßler's heavenly lust for the soul among the flowers, divine word; or devout contemplations on different exquisite sayings Heil. Writings: By what a believing person, strengthened in love towards God and the neighbor, encouraged in the cross and instructed to persist in faith until the end. Adorned with edifying songs and pleasant coppers , Felßecker, 1726, p. 308 and p. 735 (register), limited preview in the Google book search
  25. ↑ Dennis Bjorklund: Seinfeld Reference: The Complete Encyclopedia with Biographies, Character Profiles & Episode Summaries , Praetorian, ISBN 978-0-9679852-4-4 . In English
  26. ↑ Episode 12 (I See Dead People (And They're Cracking Me Up)) at fernsehserien.de
  27. ↑ Lord Dunsany: The Three Infernal Jokes in: Tales of Wonder , 1916