Death from laughter explained

Death from laughter is an extremely rare form of death, usually resulting from either cardiac arrest or asphyxiation, that has itself been caused by a fit of laughter. Though uncommon, death by laughter has been recorded from the times of ancient Greece to modern times.

Usually, the phrase "dying from laughter" is used as a hyperbole.

Pathophysiology

Laughter is normally harmless. However, death may result from several pathologies that deviate from benign laughter. Infarction of the pons and the medulla oblongata in the brain may cause the pseudobulbar affect.^[1] Asphyxiation caused by laughter leads the body to shut down from the lack of oxygen.

Laughter can cause atonia and collapse ("agelastic syncope"),^{[2] [3] [4] [5]} which in turn can cause trauma. See also laughter-induced syncope, cataplexy, and Bezold–Jarisch reflex. Gelastic seizures can be due to focal lesions to the hypothalamus.^[6] Depending upon the size of the lesion, the emotional lability may be a sign of an acute condition, and not itself the cause of the fatality. Gelastic syncope has also been associated with the cerebellum.^[7]

Notable cases

• Zeuxis, a 5th-century BC Greek painter, is said to have died laughing at the humorous way in which he painted an old woman.^[8]
• Chrysippus, also known as "the man who died from laughing at his joke", is a 3rd-century BC Greek Stoic philosopher who died of laughter after he saw a donkey eating his fermented figs; he told a slave to give the donkey undiluted wine to wash them down, and then, "having laughed too much, he died" (Diogenes Laërtius 7.185).^[9]
• In 1410, King Martin of Aragon is said to have died from a combination of indigestion and uncontrollable laughter.^[10]
• In 1556, Pietro Aretino "is said to have died of suffocation from laughing too much".^[11]
• In 1660, Thomas Urquhart, the Scottish aristocrat, polymath, and first translator of François Rabelais' writings into English, is said to have died laughing upon hearing that Charles II had taken the throne.^{[12] [13]}
• On October 14, 1920, 56-year-old Arthur Cobcroft, a dog trainer from Loftus Street, Leichhardt, Australia, was reading a five-year-old newspaper and was amused at the prices for some commodities in 1915 as compared to 1920. He made a remark to his wife regarding this and burst into laughter, and in the midst of it, he collapsed and died. A doctor surnamed Nixon was called in, and stated that the death was due to heart failure, brought by excessive laughter.^{[14] [15] [16] [17]}
• During the night of October 30, 1965 in Manila, Philippines, a 24-year-old carpenter who was well-known for making his companions laugh was telling jokes to his friends. The joke, which the carpenter's friends told police, was so funny that it caused the carpenter to fall in an uncontrollable fit of laughter from which he then fainted; he was brought to the hospital, but died before he could be given medical help.^{[18] [19]} The book The Big Book of Boy Stuff by author Bart King recounts the incident in anecdotal form, where the carpenter was instead told the joke by his friends rather than himself, and "laughed until he cried, collapsed, and then died."^[20]
• On March 24, 1975, Alex Mitchell, from King's Lynn, England, died laughing while watching the "Kung Fu Kapers" episode of The Goodies, featuring a kilt-clad Scotsman with his bagpipes battling a master of the Lancastrian martial art "Eckythump", who was armed with a black pudding. After 25 minutes of continuous laughter, Mitchell then slumped on the sofa and died from heart failure. His widow later sent The Goodies a letter thanking them for making Mitchell's final moments of life so pleasant.^{[21] [22] [23] [24]} Diagnosis of his granddaughter in 2012 of having the inheritable long QT syndrome (a heart rhythm abnormality) suggests that Mitchell may have died of a cardiac arrest caused by the same condition.^[25]
• In 1989, during the initial run of the film A Fish Called Wanda, a 56-year-old Danish audiologist named Ole Bentzen reportedly laughed himself to death.^{[26] [27]}
• In 2003, an ice-cream truck driver in Northern Thailand, died soon after he began laughing in his sleep. One late Tuesday night, Damnoen Saen-um, 52, was asleep in his home in Mueang Phuket district when he started mumbling and laughing. Newspapers reported that Damnoen's wife made several attempts to wake up her husband as he was laughing. To no avail, Damnoen stopped breathing on Wednesday, after about two minutes of laughing. A doctor in the province calls this an unusual case and suspects Damnoen may have died from heart complications. However, they are unsure as he had no prior history of heart problems and was reported to have been walking normally the day before.^{[28] [29] [30]}

See also

• Kuru, also known as "laughing sickness"
• Nitrous oxide
• Laughter-induced syncope
• List of unusual deaths
• Paradoxical laughter
• Sardonicism
• Tickle torture
• "The Three Infernal Jokes", short story in The Last Book of Wonder (1916) by Lord Dunsany, about three jokes "which shall make all who hear them simply die of laughter".
• "The Funniest Joke in the World", episode of British sketch comedy Monty Python, which revolves around a joke so funny that anybody who hears it promptly laughs themselves to death
• "The Stand In", episode of American comedy Seinfeld, which features Jerry Seinfeld telling a joke to a hospital patient who then suddenly dies from laughter
• Infinite Jest (1996), a novel by David Foster Wallace in which the meta-narrative includes a film so entertaining that those who see it lose all interest in anything else, and die.
• The Clean House, a play where dying of laughter is a reoccurring theme.

External links

• "Have People Died Laughing?" Snopes.com. 2004.

Notes and References

1. Gondim FA, Parks BJ, Cruz-Flores S . 'Fou rire prodromique' as the presentation of pontine ischaemia secondary to vertebrobasilar stenosis . J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry . 71 . 6 . 802–804 . December 2001 . 11723208 . 1737630 . 10.1136/jnnp.71.6.802.
2. Reiss AL, Hoeft F, Tenforde AS, Chen W, Mobbs D, Mignot EJ . Anomalous hypothalamic responses to humor in cataplexy . PLOS ONE . 3 . 5 . e2225 . 2008 . 18493621 . 2377337 . 10.1371/journal.pone.0002225 . 2008PLoSO...3.2225R . Greene . Ernest. free .
3. Nishida K, Hirota SK, Tokeshi J . Laugh syncope as a rare sub-type of the situational syncopes: a case report . J Med Case Rep . 2 . 1 . 197 . 2008 . 18538031 . 2440757 . 10.1186/1752-1947-2-197 . free .
4. Totah AR, Benbadis SR . Gelastic syncope mistaken for cataplexy . Sleep Med. . 3 . 1 . 77–78 . January 2002 . 14592259 . 10.1016/S1389-9457(01)00113-7 .
5. Lo R, Cohen TJ . Laughter-induced syncope: no laughing matter . Am. J. Med. . 120 . 11 . e5 . November 2007 . 17976409 . 10.1016/j.amjmed.2006.07.019. free .
6. Cheung CS, Parrent AG, Burneo JG . Gelastic seizures: not always hypothalamic hamartoma . Epileptic Disord . 9 . 4 . 453–458 . December 2007 . 18077234 . 10.1684/epd.2007.0139 .
7. Famularo G, Corsi FM, Minisola G, De Simone C, Nicotra GC . Cerebellar tumour presenting with pathological laughter and gelastic syncope . Eur. J. Neurol. . 14 . 8 . 940–943 . August 2007 . 17662020 . 10.1111/j.1468-1331.2007.01784.x. 10940256 .
8. The Spectacular Self: Jean-Etienne Liotard's Self-Portrait Laughing. North Street Review . Bark . Julianna . 2007–2008 .
9. Book: Laërtius, Diogenes . Lives, Teachings and Sayings of the Eminent Philosophers, with an English translation by R.D. Hicks (1964–1965) . Harvard UP/W. Heinemann Ltd . Cambridge, Massachusetts/London.
10. Web site: Patronage and Piety: Montserrat and the Royal House of Medieval Catalonia-Aragon . Paul N. . Morris . October 2000 . https://web.archive.org/web/20060304124353/http://www.cc.jyu.fi/mirator/pdf/Morris.pdf . 2006-03-04 . 8.
11. Waterfield, Gordon, ed. First Footsteps in East Africa, (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1966) p. 59 footnote.
12. Book: Brown, Huntington . Rabelais in English Literature . 0-7146-2051-3 . Routledge . 126 . 1968.
13. Book: The History of Scottish Poetry . Edmonston & Douglas . 1861 . 539, footnote 4.
14. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/4577221 Laughter causes death
15. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/57926179 Died of Laughter
16. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/157027609 Death Follows Laughter.
17. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/123983055 Died Laughing.
18. http://memoria.bn.br/DocReader/DocReader.aspx?bib=093718_04&pesq=%22morreu%20o%20contador%20de%20piadas%22&pasta=ano%20196 Morreu o contador de piadas
19. https://gleaner.newspaperarchive.com/kingston-gleaner/1965-10-31/page-3/ Kingston Gleaner, Sunday, October 1965, p. 3.
20. Book: King, Bart . The Big Book of Boy Stuff . 2004-07-15 . Gibbs Smith . 978-1-4236-1118-9 . 159 . en . "More recently, a 24-year-old carpenter in the Philippines was told a joke by a friend. The carpenter thought the joke was so funny, he laughed until he cried, collapsed, and then died.".
21. Web site: The Last Laugh's on Him . Urban Legends Reference Pages . 2007-01-19 . 2007-06-23.
22. Book: Ross, Robert . The Complete Goodies . B T Batsford . London . 2000.
23. News: A Goodies Way to Go – Laughing . Eastern Daily Press . Norwich . 29 March 1975.
24. Book: Staveacre, Tony . Slapstick! The Illustrated Story of Knockabout Comedy . Angus & Robinson . 1987.
25. News: Man who died laughing at Goodies had Long QT syndrome . Anita . Singh . 21 Jun 2012 . The Telegraph . 2 April 2015.
26. Web site: 10 People Who Literally Died From Laughter. Thought Catalog. Jim. Goad. 17 March 2015. 2 December 2023.
27. Web site: King. Darryn. 2018-07-12. 'Just a Concoction of Nonsense': The Oral History of A Fish Called Wanda. 2021-10-04. Vanity Fair Blogs. en-US.
28. Web site: 2003-08-22 . Thai man dies laughing . 2024-02-01 . The Sydney Morning Herald . en.
29. Web site: 2003-08-21 . Man laughs to death in sleep . 2024-02-01 . SFGATE . en.
30. Web site: Thai Man Dies While Laughing in Sleep (NDC) . 2024-02-01 . rec.music.gdead.narkive.com.