30 Morbid Minutes

Today, electroconvulsive therapy is still used to treat those struggling with severe depression, bipolar II, schizophrenia, and other treatment-resistant disorders. An estimated 100,000 people are treated annually across the U.S. Nevertheless, ECT carries stigmas due to its tarnished and sordid history, marred by inhumane and forced procedures, torture, and wild experimentation. We investigate ECT’s controversial past, how the practice has been abused, and how it’s evolved since.

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A sky burial is a funerary practice in which the body of a deceased person is prepared, placed, and left exposed in a place of high elevation so that vultures and other scavenging birds will consume it and carry the deceased's soul to the heavens. In this episode we explore the history and theological origins of sky burials, who practices it, and why this unique burial rite is in decline.

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The Mariana Trench is the deepest location on earth and widely unexplored. The harsh conditions make it impossible for shallow ocean life to exist, and chartered explorations are a challenge, even with the most advanced submersible technology. Only 27 people have descended into its depths, including film director, James Cameron. We investigate the unusual creatures that dwell within the deep, and what happens if a journey into the trench goes wrong.

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There are over 200 known cases where people have been found burned to death with no discernible cause. These cases have contributed to the theory of spontaneous human combustion, the idea that a person can catch fire and burn alive with no external ignition source. And, while it's regarded as a pseudoscience by the field at large, large enforcement and coroners around the world still use spontaneous human combustion as an official cause of death. We try to separate fact from fiction in this burning mystery, examining theories like the "wick effect."

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Bills of Mortality originated in the late sixteenth century as a way for parish networks to track weekly plague outbreaks. Eventually, over time, this medical journal evolved to become a standard practice, documenting annual mortality statistics. Much of the terminology and disease nomenclature used is now considered vastly outdated by today's medical standards. In this episode, Elyse and Jessica go through the list of causes of death, trying to explain and translate with historical context.

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