Medea - Medical Perspective

Medea – Medical Perspective

In Medea, death is one of the main themes since Medea, in her extreme rage, ends up killing a lot of people including her children in different ways, we’re going to focus on the deaths that were caused by a weapon like a knife, by poison and by flames. We’re then going to see the different stages that our body goes through after our death.

What happens to our body when we get stabbed or cut?

If we get stabbed or cut in a vital area like the neck, the heart, or the stomach, like Medea’s children, the chances of healing are small, you’ll most likely be dead by blood loss before help reaches you, but if by any chance your vital organs are safe or that help manages to arrive in time, then this I what will happen to your body:

When you get stabbed by for example a knife, it’s the intrusion of an unknown body in your body, as a self-defense, the skin has a kind of elastic property which will often close tightly around the object and, if removed, will close the hole left behind. This mechanism is called scarring. In the case of deep wound like being stabbed by a knife, the scarring will go through multiple phases before finally be healed. First, the inflammatory phase that consists of eliminating any bacteria and dead tissues around the wound that will last a few days. Then there’s the angiogenesis that is the formation of new blood vessels, since the human body is well made, as soon as blood vessels are destroyed, other blood vessels will come from those damaged blood vessels to make sure that the cells get the oxygen and nutrients necessary. After is the migration phase, which basically means the creation of the crust, the crust is a tissue of renewal, therefore a granular surface, it’s the beginning of the development of the scar, it permits the connective tissue cells to migrate to the lesion to rebuild it. Finally, the maturation phase which is the longest phase since it can last for many years, the crust falls and skin will regain all of her layers, scars most of the time are painless after 6 months.

What happens to your body when you get poisoned?

In Medea, we known that Medea is a witch that uses various herbs to create her mixtures and poisons, in the play, the Princess dies from burns because of the poison that was on her dress, a plant with the properties to burn the skin to death exists, it’s known as the Giant Hogweed. The Giant Hogweed releases a sap that contains chemicals called “photosensitizing furanocoumarins”, the chemicals make the human skins extremely sensitive to sunlight, having a contact with this plant and even a little bit of exposure to sunlight will end up in severe painful burns and scarring.

What happens to our body when we get burned alive?

Being burned alive is by far the most painful death since we will be conscious for at least 1 to 2 minutes of constant pain. When we get burned alive, we will first start by a lack of oxygen, effectively the flames will consume all the oxygen around us and will release CO2 that will pollute our mouth and lungs, because of that, our muscles and brain functions will weaken but not shut down because of the production of adrenaline that we will receive. We will stay conscious until we have no more oxygen our we succumb to the pain. The outside of the body will take more time than we think to burn since our body Is made of 80% of water, but once the water is evaporated, the flames will start burning its way inside us. Once the heat produced by the flames has reached are veins and arteries, they will compress immediately which will completely block the blood flow destroying our circulatory system, our vital organs will get destroyed as well. By the time we reach this stage, we were dead a long time ago because of the smoke and the heat from in and outside the body, the muscles will start to burn, but since they are more dense than the skin, it will take fire more time to consume it, usually the fire will stop after consuming the muscles and only bones will be left since they are the last and hardest part of our body.

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