Blog 3 - Argument Paper *Warning: Very Long Quote*

Neurotoxins are an extensive class of exogenous chemical neurological insults which can adversely affect function in both developing and mature nervous tissue (Cite).In simpler words, neurotoxins are a type of poison that slow ones bodily functions to the point that one can be considered medically deceased. In collaboration with chemicals called alkaloids, people affected by neurotoxins can be seemingly brought back to life, or become a zombie (Wong 1). An incident of this chemical relationship is recorded by Dr. Wade Davis, about a man named Clairvius Narcisse, in his books Passage of Darkness, and The Serpent and the Rainbow. The facts of the case of Clairvius Narcisse are as follows:On the 30th of April, 1962, at 9:45 PM, he checked himself into the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in the town of Deschapelle in the Artibonite Valley of Haiti. Narcisse had been sick for some time, complaining of fever, body aches, and general malaise, but just recently he had begun coughing up blood. His condition deteriorated rapidly. Attending physicians noted that Narcisse suffered from digestive disorders, pulmonary edema, hypothermia, respiratory difficulties, and hypotension. His sister Angelina would later recall that his lips turned blue, or cyanotic, and that he reported tingling sensations, or paraesthesias, all over his body.On the morning of May 2 his two attending physicians, one of whom was American and the other American -trained, pronounced Clairvius Narcisse dead. His body was identified by his oldest sister, Marie Claire, who affixed her thumbprint to the death certificate, and he was buried the next day.Eighteen years later, Angelina Narcisse was walking through the village marketplace when she was approached by someone claiming to be Clairvius Narcisse. The man identified himself by a boyhood nickname which had not been used for years and which was known only to members of the immediate family, and he had a bizarre tale to tell.He said that shortly before he was pronounced dead, he felt as if his skin was on fire, with insects crawling beneath it. He heard his sister Angelina weeping as he was pronounced dead, felt the sheet being pulled up over his face. Horrifyingly, although he was unable to move or speak, he remained lucid and aware the entire time, even as his coffin was nailed shut and buried. He even had a scar which he claimed was sustained as one of the coffin nails was driven through his face. He felt the sensation of floating above the grave. There he remained, for how long he did not know, until the coffin was opened by the bokor and his henchmen. He was beaten into submission, bound, gagged, and spirited away to a sugar plantation that was to be his home for the next two years.On the plantation, Narcisse and some other zombies labored from sunup to sunset, pausing for only one spare meal a day. He would later report that he passed his time there in a dream-like state, devoid of will or volition, with events unfolding before him as if in slow motion. (Hahn 1)