8. Sticking the Corpse’s Finger In Your Ear
In the same vein as Dr. Séverin Icard, Dr. Léon Collongues decided to make a name for himself by inventing a new manner to test for death. Collongues’ method involved putting the corpse’s finger in your ear. Seriously. Collongues argued that the involuntary muscle movements in a living person’s finger would create a buzzing sound in the ear of a trained physician. It seems like listening for a heartbeat or feeling for a pulse would be far more accessible and reliable, but kudos for originality.
As if sticking a dead person’s finger in your ear weren’t strange enough, Collongues eventually expanded on his theory and argued that listening to fingers could also be used to detect certain diseases. Being a true academic, Collongues also went on record saying that his corpse finger test was superior to the trials of other leading physicians at the time. As if the idea of dying of untreatable 19th-century diseases weren’t bad enough, or the idea that you might be buried alive, imagine living with the idea that your best hope to survive being buried alive was that a man would listen to your unconscious body’s finger.