Hex

by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

During the Boston Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1693, mass graves were often reopened to bury the new dead, and sometimes the gravediggers came across swollen corpses that had blood running out of their mouths, with the shrouds eaten away from around the faces. It was as if the dead person had gnawed his way out of his shroud and had come back to life in order to drink blood. Today we know that decomposing bodies swell up because of gases. Rotting organs force fluids out of the mouth and the shroud is eaten away by the bacteria they contain. But back then it was presented as scientific fact that the ‘shroud eaters’ were the undead who fed on the living and spread curses along with the fever, so that more dead would come to life. Church ministers would shove bricks into their mouths so they would starve.”