1. Frederic Chopin asked his family to cut his chest open so that they could be certain he wouldn’t be buried alive
In the summer of 1849, the composer Frederic Chopin fell ill. He had tuberculosis and the prognosis didn’t look good. Family and friends traveled to Paris, the city he had been calling home for several years. At his request, they played music and sung to him while he was on his deathbed. And, alongside the music, Chopin had one other last request: he begged his family to make sure he really was dead before he was taken away to be buried. For, like many people in 19th century Europe, Chopin had a deep-seated fear of being buried alive.
Chopin’s last, grisly wish was fulfilled. Within hours of his passing, his body was cut open. Certain that he was really dead, his heart was removed. It was then sent to the composer’s home city of Warsaw in Poland. The rest of his body was then buried in Paris. The funeral was a huge event. Indeed, it was probably the social event of that autumn, and it had to be delayed by almost two weeks because so many people applied for tickets to attend. More than 150 years after his death, scientists were able to examine his preserved heart and conclude that he died of a rare complication of TB.
This phobia of being buried alive – one shared by many other notable men of the age – was hardly irrational. Alfred Nobel, the scientist who established the world-famous awards, also asked that his veins be opened up when it appeared that he was dead, so as to make doubly sure. Indeed, it was only really with the introduction of cremation that this phobia has started to disappear from society, even if there are still to this day very rare instances of people ‘coming back to life’, having been wrongly pronounced as deceased.
Where did we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
National Archive – Hitler and his Dentist
Daily Mail – Nazi Records Show How Hitler Hated Going To The Dentist
Hans Christian Anderson – The Emperor’s New Clothes
Hans Christian Anderson – The Ugly Duckling
Hans Christian Anderson – The Little Mermaid
“The Infested Mind: An Entomologist’s Crippling Fear of Insects.” Discover Magazine.
Medium – Edvard Munch’s “Anxiety”
The New York Times – Looking at Edvard Munch, Beyond ‘The Scream’
Architectural Digest – The Secret History Behind Edvard Munch’s The Scream
“10 Famous People Who Were Afraid They’d Be Buried Alive” BESS LOVEJOY, Mental Floss, MAY 20, 2015.
“Kim Jong-Il’s fear of flying ‘caused by copter crash’.” Sydney Morning Herald, June 2003.
“Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection: Review.” The Guardian, March 2004.
DW – ‘Proust Teaches Us To Pay Attention’
News Week – How Hitchcock Instilled His Own Anxieties in His Audience
The Conversation – What Was Sweating Sickness – The Mysterious Tudor Plague Of Wolf Hall?