Thunderbolts Or: Three Approaches to a Sticky Problem by Brian Quaranta

"These findings demonstrate that under appropriate conditions the isolated, intact large mammalian brain possesses an underappreciated capacity for restoration of microcirculation and molecular and cellular activity after a prolonged post-mortem interval."

from "Restoration of brain circulation and cellular functions hours post-mortem," Vrselja et al, Nature 568 (18), April 2019, p. 336.

Down they go, each at his appointed time.

They are not ready.

This one hanged, that one burned, over there

A guiltless boy trampled by a bull from the sea.

From solid ground he reaches down, offering

A branch wrapped in a snake.

One by one, they risk the fangs, and take hold.

He pulls them up and breathes in new life.

But uncle is a jealous god,

And he stalks his emptying halls with mounting envy

Pacing and ranting until his complaints echo

On Olympus, and the King, grown tired of hubris,

Strikes down the resurrectionist with a thunderbolt.

A single voice, but also a thousand, five thousand,

Screams out in pain;

In madness, twisting, writhing, flying,

And a beaten, scraped, unbound human form collapses

Inanimate.

A pig stirs. It lifts its head.

White fat warms against red bones, and it makes

A noise no pig should ever make.

Hands cover ears and eyes as

The animals rush past;

Five thousand pigs rush bite push mount squeal seize

Are infused

With the spirits of the air. They drive forward—

Where one goes, another must—they cannot stop—downward, downward,

Frothing mouths go under, the pile sinks

Water bubbles, churns, shouts, blackens.

Then, stillness. And the man in the body stands up again,

Recalled to life.

Six severed porcine heads, snouts upward, float in a pool

In a lab in Connecticut.

A voice counts down, a button is pushed, a thunderbolt strikes!

And in a nearby room, a monitor registers a blip.

First one, then more, then, for a few flickering moments,

Thousands.

A smile passes around the room

And word passes around the world.

Bio

Brian Quaranta, MD, MA, is an Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology at Duke University School of Medicine, Faculty Affiliate in the Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative at Duke University Divinity School, and a faculty member of the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine. His medical practice is focused on general radiation oncology. He is passionately interested in literature, history, psychology, and philosophy, and has an MA in Shakespeare and Theatre from the Shakespeare Institute at Stratford-upon-Avon, and a certificate in Theology, Medicine, and Culture from Duke Divinity School. Recent courses taught include Medicine and Human Flourishing, Narrative Medicine, and Plague Literature: Ancient and Modern. Research projects include looking at issues of medical ethics as portrayed in Shakespeare’s plays, and more generally in how carefully studying literature can help to form patient-centered physicians. He has published poetry in Practical Radiation Oncology and The Christian Journal of Global Health.

Author's note

“Thunderbolts…” is my response to a seminal paper published by a group of Yale University neuroscientists in the April 2019 issue of the journal Nature. The authors infused the decapitated heads of pigs with a proprietary solution they named “BrainEx” four hours post-mortem, and they were able to demonstrate reactivation of some synaptic activity and cerebral metabolism—in other words, what could be considered minimal “signs of life.” It occurred to me that re-introducing signs of life to the brain of a severed head after four hours is closer to an attempt at resurrection than resuscitation. In that context, I couldn’t help but recall two prominent raisers of the dead from the ancient Greco-Roman world; and Carmina Magazine, with its emphasis on the artistic expression of the manifold connections between the classical and modern worlds, seemed like an ideal place to share these thoughts.