Hunger and thirst

The symptoms of extreme dehydration were cataloged in 1906 by W.J. McGee in a classic published paper entitled "Desert Thirst as Disease," based on the experiences of 40-year-old Pablo Valencia, who survived almost 7 days in the Arizona desert without water:

Saliva becomes thick and foul-tasting. The tongue clings irritatingly to the teeth and the roof of the mouth. Though speech becomes difficult, sufferers are moved to complain ceaselessly about their thirst until their voices become cracked and hoarse. Even when they can no longer speak, they continue to moan and bellow. When the mouth ceases to generate saliva, the tongue hardens into a "senseless weight, swinging on the still-soft root and striking foreignly against the teeth." A lump forms in the throat causing repeated swallowing in a vain attempt to dislodge it. Severe pain is felt in the head and neck. The face feels full because the skin shrinks. Hearing is affected and many people begin to hallucinate. The tongue swells to such proportions that it squeezes past the jaws. The eyelids crack and the eyes begin to weep tears of blood. And the throat swells to such a degree that breathing becomes difficult, causing the incongruous yet terrifying sensation of drowning.

The physiological and psychological effects of severe and prolonged dietary restriction were observed in a classic study by Ancel Keys, conducted in 1944-45 and referred to as the Minnesota Starvation Experiment:

As the subjects began to lose weight, they became lethargic and irritable. Concentration became difficult. They experienced lack of physical strength and balance, and many blacked out when they stood up quickly. Their limbs swelled. Their sexual desire was replaced with an obsession with food, manifesting itself in recounting meals and reading cookbooks. They lost initiative and creativity. "Many of the so-called American characteristics - abounding energy, generosity, optimism - become intellible as the expected behavior response of a well-fed people."

This post was inspired by the book In the Heart of the Sea, which chronicles a 19th c. account of survival cannibalism.

Survivors

You may wish to skip this post, and I don't blame you. Aware of more than one story like that of Jaycee Dugard, I was compelled to collect them last night. I don't usually feature such horrible crimes in Quigley's Cabinet - and have chosen to focus on the survivors, rather than the human monsters who imprisoned and impregnated them - but when another case appeared in the weird news just after I finished compiling my list, I knew today was the day...

Jaycee Dugard, United States
Jaycee was kidnapped within site of her California home at the age of 11 in 1991. She was forced to live in a tent behind her abductor's house for 18 years before she was rescued in 2009 and her captors imprisoned. Jaycee was raped and gave birth to 2 daughters, who were raised thinking she was their older sister. They are now teenagers and living with their mother out of the public eye.

Elisabeth Fritzl, Austria
In a case to which all others are compared, Elisabeth was held captive from the age of 18 by her father and spent the next 24 years in a concealed part of the basement of the family home. He physically abused her and raped her repeatedly, resulting in the birth of 7 children and 1 miscarriage. One child died at birth, 3 were raised upstairs by Elisabeth's father and mother, and the other 3 were imprisoned with her in the basement. She convinced him to take one of the girls to the hospital when she became ill, and this triggered the discovery of his monstrous crimes, for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment. After the discovery, Elisabeth, her children, and her mother (who soon became estranged because of her passivity during the horrific events) spent several months in a local clinic receiving medical and psychological treatment. They released a statement to the community: "We, the whole family, would like to take the opportunity to thank all of you for sympathy at our fate. Your compassion is helping us greatly to overcome these difficult times, and it shows us there also are good and honest people here who really care for us. We hope that soon there will be a time where we can find our way back into a normal life." Elisabeth and her kids now live well-protected in an unnamed village.

Laura Mongelli, Italy
Laura was forced to live in a dark room with no electricity from the age of 9 until his arrest in 2009, 25 years later. She had been repeatedly raped by her father and her brother, who also abused his own 3 daughters.

Lydia Gouardo, France
Lydia was imprisoned for the first 28 years of her life by her stepfather. She spent much of her time locked in the attic, was tortured from the age of 8 and raped, and gave birth to 6 children. She escaped in 1999 when her father died and has since written an autobiography.

Unnamed victim, Australia
In what is referred to as the "Moe case," a daughter was kept a virtual prisoner in the family home and sexually assaulted almost every day for three decades, beginning at age 11. She gave birth to 4 children by her father, who was arrested in 2007 and sentenced to 22 years in prison for incest.

Natascha Kampusch, Austria
Natascha (pictured) was kidnapped at the age of 10 and held in captivity for 8 years in a cellar beneath her abductor's garage. "I always had the thought: surely I didn't come into the world so I could be locked up and my life completely ruined," she said of her ordeal, although she would not discuss her sexual abuse. She escaped in 2006, after which her captor threw himself in front of a train. Natascha donates the money she receives for interviews, has written a biography, and has her own talk show. She now owns the house in which she was imprisoned, and there are plans to make a movie about her life.

Unfortunate themes running through these stories are the failure of the mothers to intervene and the opportunities the police missed to uncover the abuse. The women above survived their abusive childhoods, but these are just the ones who came to light.

Castaways, real and imagined

From the first time I climbed through the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse at Walt Disney World as a child in the 1970s, I wanted to live in a treehouse. Now that I am no longer able-bodied, that wouldn't be possible, but those who are can easily spend a weekend in one, since many bed and breakfasts offer treehouse accommodations. I checked out some of the sites last night, but they weren't rustic enough to match my childhood dream (my treehouse does not have a Jacuzzi). I returned to my research of the Swiss Family Robinson, a fictional family first featured in a rather far-fetched 1812 novel and later in a 1960 Disney film who were shipwrecked on an island in the East Indies. I learned that their name Robinson was not a surname, but a reference to the 1719 classic Robinson Crusoe, which I knew was based on a true story. Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk (1676-1721) was marooned on an uninhabited* island in the South Pacific from 1704 to 1709, surviving mainly on feral goats. What I didn't know - and was thrilled to discover - is that a Japanese explorer and a Scottish academic spent a month on the island (now called Robinson Crusoe Island and home to about 600 Chileans) in 2005 and found evidence of Selkirk's presence. They described their finds, including his campsite, post-holes of his shelters, and parts of a navigational tool, in Post-Medieval Archaeology in 2008. Since then, a rare diary by the British privateer who rescued Selkirk has been found.

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*The real Robinson Crusoe had no "Man Friday."

Internal decapitation

Jordan Taylor, a 9-year-old boy from Hillsboro, Texas, was featured on CBS's Early Show last week because of his remarkable recovery from a car accident 3 months ago. When hit by a dump truck that ran a red light, Jordan's head shifted forward and became separated from his vertebral column, although his spinal cord remained intact. The injury is known as internal decapitation or orthopedic decapitation, and is quite rare. A woman in Nebraska named Shannon Malloy suffered internal decapitation in January 2007.

Traumatic skull injuries

I heard a passing reference on the news this morning about a boy who survived keys lodged in his eye socket (x-ray below). It reminded me of the classic story of Phineas Gage. Yesterday, I had an x-ray taken of my tooth, which I had the office e-mail to me so I could upload it. I've been unsuccessful with that so far, but offer the following strange images and stories:

Ice swimmers

Just as my "afternoon chill" was coming on, I was inexplicably compelled to seek out the stories and images of people swimming in icy waters. I must have seen a story about Lewis Gordon Pugh and remembered seeing a similar swimmer--Lynne Cox, as it turns out--on Sixty Minutes. Both Lewis and Lynne have swum in frozen Arctic and Antarctic waters wearing only a swimsuit, cap, and goggles. He claims to have spent 18 minutes at the North Pole swimming in colder water than anyone else. She describes the sensation in an interview:

You feel an intense cold. In that first moment, your body is changing in huge ways. You're shunting the blood into the core of the body to protect the heart, lungs and brain. And so you are feeling that shift. Your blood pressure is changing instantly. You're hyperventilating. Your heart is beating very rapidly. You're trying to compensate and trying to create heat by moving your arms really fast. I was really focusing on trying to keep my stroke rate so I could create heat. I also swam with my head up, because you lose up to 80 percent of heat through your head.

After years of study, scientists still can't figure out how they can pull off feats that would kill anyone else. It requires a lot of practice, even if you are up for the annual polar bear plunge...