Articulo de Zombies

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Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 23 (1988) 121- 126Elsevier Scientific Publishers Ireland Ltd.

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L e t t e r t o t h e E d i t o r s

TETR ODOTOXIN AND THE ZOMBI P HE NOMENON

Dear Sirs,The folklore of Haiti has long been an area of fascination for scholars of

th e disciplines of ant hr opology, biology an d religion . African , Car ibbean an dFr ench herita ge ha s ma de a unique blend of cust oms an d beliefs for th is longindependent nation.

Grea t inter est ha s been focused on th e zombi legend/phen omen on. Beliefis widespread th at by ma gical or oth er un known mea ns a person ma y diean d be tra nsform ed int o a crea tu re of living dea th called a zombi. Th isliving-dead entity is said to have no will of his own, but can be made to per-form slave labor. Opinion is divided as to th e pr ocess by which this tr an sfor-mation can be made to occur. Some Haitians appear to prefer the magicalexplanation, while others believe that a poison is used by malevolent practi-tioners to cause the change.Int erest ha s now been int ensified by t he work of E.W. Davis, who wasable to investigate th e question by direct interview with H aitian physicians,health officials, and practitioners of folk magic/medicine. He identified a vari-ety of plant a nd anima l specimens which were said by pra ctitioner s to be theingredients of the elusive zombi poison (Davis, 1983).

In ad dition to his prelimin ar y paper , two oth er sources of inform at ion onhis work ar e now available - his doctora l disser ta tion (Davis, 19871 an d apopular book in which h e describes his met hods in deta il (Davis, 19851. Thecentral pharmacologic finding of his work was that puffer fish (order Tetra-odontiformes) were consistent ingredients in the putative poisonpr epar at ions which h e collected. The poison k nown t o be as sociat ed withth em, tet rodotoxin, might a ccount for s ome a spects of zombi phenomenon.

Review of th e thr ee sources ra ises questions in two ar eas. First , do th epoisons a ctu ally cont ain tet rodotoxin? Second, is th e meth od of th e fieldworkconsistent with ethical anthropologic practice?Te t rodo tox in

This compoun d is kn own to be an extr emely potent neu rotoxin. It k ills bypa ra lysis of periph era l ner ves, cau sing death by suffocat ion as th e mu scles ofrespiration are impaired. In addition it lowers the pulse, blood pressure andbody tem pera tu re (Kao, 19661. Ther efore, in subletha l d oses it is possible03788741/88/$02.45 0 1988 Elsevier Scientif ic Publishers Ireland Ltd.Published and Printed in Ireland


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th at tetr odotoxin could cau se appa rent death by diminishing th ese vital fun c-tions. Such a subleth al poisoning, followed by buria l, recovery an d exhum a-tion is th e cent ra l feat ur e of Daviss hypoth esis. It is of an th ropologicalinter est t ha t fish which a re known to cont ain t his compound a re present inthe recipes of folk magic practitioners.

But do th e powders which Davis obtain ed actu ally cont ain tet rodotoxin?Let us examine the available evidence.

The first a tt empt a t ident ificat ion of a toxic ingredient a mong thecollected powders were ma de at Daviss requ est by Dr. Leon Roisin of th eNew York Sta te Psychiat ric Inst itut e. Davis reported in his origina l paperth at Roisin foun d th at int ra perit oneal injection of poison produced a cat alep-tic state in a rat (Davis, 1983).

In a recent telephone conversat ion, Dr. Roisin told me th at , as he recalledfrom 1983, one of th e powders did app ear to cau se some sedat ion in a ra tafter percutaneous injection. Dr. Roisin stressed, however, that the com-poun ds he test ed were cru de m ixtu res, th at th e findings were verypreliminary, and required deta iled stu dy for confirm at ion. He ha s notreceived ad ditiona l sa mp les for t his pu rpose (Raisin, 19871.

In October 1984 Davis su bmit ted two sa mp les of poisons, collected in 1982an d 1984, t o Pr ofessor C.Y. Kao of th e St a te Un iversit y of New York , Down-st at e Medical Cent er, for an alysis togeth er with specimen s of puffer fish.Because the currently used analysis is based on bioassay. Professor Kao en-listed the aid of Pr ofessor Tak as hi Yasu moto of Tohu ku , J apa n, who is a re-cognized world expert in th e specific chem ical a na lysis of tet rodotoxins. Theyfound traces of the compound in the livers of the fish, but virtually none inth e poison sam ples. Fu rt her, th ey n oted t ha t extr acts of th e sam ples werehighly alka line (pH 101. Since tetr odotoxin is unst able a t th is pH, th ey con-cluded that insufficient active compound could be present to produce anysignificant biologic effects (Yasumoto and Kao, 19861.

In his original paper Davis stated that the poisons he collected in 1982ar e cur rent ly being an alyzed at the Kar olinska Inst itut e in Stockh olm a ndat the University of Lausanne, Switzerlan d (Davis, 19831. He ha s n otreported since on the resu lts of th ese stu dies.In his doctoral dissert at ion Davis sta tes th at labora tory test s h ave shownth e pr esence of tet rodotoxin in th e sam ples, a nd th at they ar e active topi-cally (Davis, 19871.His only reference for th ese as sert ions is his 1983 pap er,which documents no such findings.Thus the burden of proof would seem to be on Davis to show thattetr odotoxin is an active ingredient. Inst ead, he would appear t o be askingtha t the skeptics prove tha t i t is not present.

Davis ha s recently ar gued th at Kaos finding of alka line pH is notpertinent since the poisons are dry powders, hence do not have a pH, andth ey ar e ad min ister ed d irectly int o blood by way of an abr as ion creat ed forth is pur pose. Blood, being h ighly buffered, he claims , would prevent dena tu r-at ion of tet rodotoxin (Davis, 19861. This seem s a bit far -fetched. Fir st , t he


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powder is not an hydrous, we can assu me, and th us th ere is residua l moistur ewhich could cau se denatu ra tion in a hum id environm ent. Second, we reallyare not too sure how the poison is administered (Davis, 19851.

Davis ar gues fur th er th at th e ingredients vary in proport ion with eachcompoun ding, and th at tetr odotoxin is seas ona l in its concent ra tion in pufferfish liver (Davis, 19871. Both of th ese observa tions ar e rea sonable, but th eymiss the point th at th e burden of proof is on him and not on his critics.

Fin ally, th ere is th e question of th e sta bility of tet rodotoxin un derextreme t empera tu res. Davis insist s tha t the compound is heat -sta ble andth us could withs ta nd t he rigors of prepa ra tion (Davis, 19851. While ther e isevidence th at th e compoun d can with sta nd s hort per iods of 100-116C (Kao,19661, t does not necessar ily follow th at it will be st able a t the m uch highertemperatures of roasting to the point of incineration.Pharmacologic and so&cultural interactions

One of th e cent ra l ar gum ent s of Daviss work is th at tet rodotoxin, as apsychoactive drug, ha s actions th at can only be un derstood with in apar ticular social cont ext an d belief system. This is an int eresting idea anddeserves some thoughtful examinat ion.

Davis advances th e hypoth esis th at an y psychoactive dru g has within it acompletely am bivalent p oten tia l. Ph ar ma cologically it indu ces a cert aincondition, but that condition is mere raw material to be worked by particularcult ur al or psychological forces an d expectat ions. This is wha t th e expertscall set an d sett ing of an y drug experience. Set in th ese ter ms is th eindividuals expectat ions of wha t th e dr ug will do to h im; sett ing is th eenvironmen t - both p hysical an d, in th is case, social - in which th e dru g istaken (Davis, 19851.

For some classes of drug this is a viable idea. It is generally agreed thatthis formulation is appropriate for many of the hallucinogens. Most otherpsychoactive drugs are not so dependent on set and setting. Amphetamines,bar bitur at es, opiat es an d alcohol ha ve well-defined pha rm acologic actionswhich are influenced only partially by the ambient environment.Str ictly speak ing, tet rodotoxin is not a psychoactive dru g. It is aperiph era l nerve poison an d does not cross th e blood-bra in bar rier in signifi-can t concentra tions. It is un der n o imaginable circumst an ces a drug su itablefor r ecreat ion or per sona l experiment at ion. Thus it seems a bit wide of th emark to describe it as having a completely ambivalent potential. It induces avery definite condition - deat h. Subleth al poisonin gs ar e a scient ific cur ios-ity.Tempest in a teapot

The amount of public information and notoriety which has been generatedon this matter is very much out of proportion to the modest nature of Dav-


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iss findings. It is int erest ing th at a known toxic fish is an ingr edient of folkma gic prepa ra tions in Ha iti. But th e purported poisons th emselves seem toha ve no ph ar ma cologic activity. No new dru g h as been discovered, an d th ereis litt le reason t o suppose th at any new medical knowledge is likely toemerge from this inquiry.

Oddly, th ere ha s been an explosion of int erest in th e public med ia whichcompa res un favorably with t he pa ucity of dat a published in peer-reviewedscient ific jour na ls. Art icles ha ve appea red in OMNI, Newsweek, Newsda y,Time, Harvard Magazine and The American Scientist. There have beenma ny newspaper ar ticles an d television shows devoted to th ese findings.Davis has written a popular book, and a movie has just appeared.

How are we to explain this curious ratio of fact to publicity? Davis givesus a clue in his popular book, The Serpent and the Rainbow, p. 175: Butwhile my backer s st ill sought evidence of a single chem ical th at m ightexplain zombification, I had become more and more impressed by a peoplewho shared no such obsession with rational causality. I wanted to know themagic (Davis, 1985).

Thus it would appear that for Davis the question of actual existence oftet rodotoxins in th e poisons is of litt le importa nce, which may explain h isneglect in ma king their a bsence more explicit. For t hose of us who ar e st illobsessed with ra tional cau sality, th e integr ity of scient ific met hod is st illimportant.E t h i c a l concerns

Exam ina tion of Daviss work su ggests th ree ar eas of eth ical inquir y.These a re th e meth odology of th e fieldwork, th e quest ion of withh oldingnegative data, and the citation of sources.Method of the fieldworkIn 1982 Davis was hired by Na th an Kline an d David Merrick to go toHa iti: My a ssignm ent as out lined s uccinctly by Kline was to tra vel to Hait i,find th e voodoo sorcerer s resp ons ible, an d obta in sa mp les of th e poison a ndthe antidote, observing their preparation and if possible documenting theiruse (Davis, 19851.

He was able, apparently, to accomplish some of this in the astonishinglysh ort tim e of a few weeks in th e su mm er of 1982. He ident ified severa l folkpractitioners and bought preparations from them with the explanation thathe want ed to use th em on a n enemy (p. 541, or altern at ively t ha t h e neededthem for scientific study.

The second part of the mission, documenting the use of the poisons, asDavis quotes Kline a s ha ving discreetly pu t it, was not accomp lished.Evident ly Da vis at tem pt ed to commission t he creat ion of a zombi, an d in along ba rga ining sess ion fina lly agr eed on a pr ice (p. 2021. All t hatrem ain ed to accomplish as far as he (Kline) was concern ed was th e


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docum ent at ion an d medical stu dy of a victim as it (sic!) cam e out of th egroun d (p. 2161.

This method seems highly improper. It is one thing to pay folkpr actit ioner s for th eir recipes in order to look for n ew dru gs. It is quiteanother to offer very poor people money to do things to other people whichar e th ought to be able to kill th em. And t his under th e protective colora tionor, indeed, the mimicry of science! How odd that this lapse of moral coher-ence went un detected an d unexamined by all th e popular media.Selection of the dataDavis is vulner able to scient ific crit icism for not having reported th atcareful ana lysis of th e collected powder s sh owed no evidence of significan ttet rodotoxin. This is also a cur ious lapse, since th e an th ropologic an alysiswould not have been dam aged very mu ch, if at a ll. It is not too stra nge th atfolk practitioners have not managed to preserve this fragile molecule inth eir prepar at ions. But it is bad science to publish only favora ble dat a.Citation of sources

Compared to the above concerns, this criticism is minor. While reading hisdissertation in the Harvard archives, I was surprised to find six sentencesfrom a 1983 ma nu script which I had subm itted for publicat ion an d which Isent to Davis as a cour tesy. No reference to my ma nu script was included inth e disserta tion. This suggests some lack of at tent ion to academic detail.Conclusion

All things cons idered, th is project does not cas t science in a very goodlight. Davis owes the academic community an apology.What About Haiti?

Ha iti ha s ma ny needs. Democra cy is str uggling to reemerge. Criticalissues of health, nutrition and development are manifest. Capital investmentis in need of stimu lation. The Ha itian people a re doing th eir best un der asiege of terrible calamities. They need our support. What they mostemphatically do not need is sensationalistic attention to some of theirunusual folk practices.References

Davis, E.W. (1983) The ethnobiology of the Haitian zombi. Journal of Ethmpharmacology 9. 85-104.Davis, E.W. (1985) The Serpent and the Rainbow, Warner Books, New York.Davis, E.W. (1986) Zombification theory: will it wash? Harvard Magazine July/August, lOl- 102.Davis, E.W. (1987) The ethnobiology of the Haitian zombi. Doctoral Thesis, Department of Biol-

ogy, Harvard University Archives.


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Kao, C.Y. (1966) Tetrodotoxin, saxitoxin and their significance in the study of excitation phenom-ena. Pharmacobgkal Reviews 18,997 - 1049.

Roisin, L. (1981) Personal communication, July 30.Yasumoto, T. and Kao, C.Y. (19861 Tetrodotoxin and the Haitian zombie. Tozhn 24, 747 - 749.William H. AndersonMassachusetts General HospitalBostonMA 02114, U.S.A.

29 March 1988

Articulo de Zombies

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