The hand that feeds us is in some danger of being bitten
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
We humans as a species are very protective of our bodies.
The mere thought of getting sick and being brought to our knees from within by
our own immune system will make even the strongest of people quiver in fear. In
the dark ages it was believed that illnesses and ailments were 'bad spirits' or
curses and were met with sometimes primitive treatments, that is until the late
1800's and the discovery of bacteria by Robert Koch. Through the modern
medicine of today we've discounted superstition and old wives' tales as myth
and fallacy in favor of establishing legitimate scientific medical proof of
living organisms as the cause and developed appropriate treatments and
vaccinations to illnesses that may have proven life-threatening to prior
generations. Yet in spite of all our amazing breakthroughs and medical advances
the fear of bodily invasion has never changed. This is why a zombie, literally,
embodies our worst fear come true.
Like so many predatory creatures found in nature, a majority
of a zombies' power comes from the fear of its bite (next to their abundance in
numbers and seemingly adept hunting ability). We've known for years that a bite
from a zombie has proven fatal 99.999% percent of the time but we've never
analyzed why. Let's look deeper shall we?
A living human mouth is rife with up to 100,000,000
organisms per mL of saliva (as many as 190 different species) residing on every
tooth and in every crack and crevice. These bacterium serve many different
functions within the mouth, some are helpful and aid in the pre-digestion of
food or fight disease for example while others can cause something as minor as
bad breath or cause serious illness. The number of bad bacteria is reduced if
the individual makes good oral hygiene a regular habit.
You ever forget to brush your teeth before going to bed one
night? That film covering your teeth and gums the next morning when you wake up
is plaque, oral bacteria, that grows rampantly in the human mouth. If left
unchecked, this plaque will transform into a veritable Petri dish of bacteria
and fungi since the mouth has perfect conditions to support growth at an
alarming rate.
Now imagine this person has been dead just long enough to
begin putrefication before reanimation. You've got a whole new set of bacterium
trying to eat away necrotic tissue along with whatever was previously living in
the person's body. Also, throw in the fun variable of whether or not this
zombie has been eating someone or not.
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| Give us a big kiss |
Why? You ask. Zombies just LOVE entrails. They seem to have
a particular fondness for intestines. Our guts are just full of even more fun
gastrointestinal flora that normally help us digest the food we eat and excrete
the waste. Add a heaping dollop of this into our lovely stew of microbes and
you have Howard Hughes' (or Howie Mandel's for that matter) worst nightmare.
You ever notice how a zombie's favorite spot is to go for the trapezius muscle
in between the shoulder and the neck/carotid artery? Picture all this filth and
nastiness entering into your bloodstream, put the entry site near a major
artery or venal system and you're essentially dead within the minute. The
resulting massive infection is what causes a bitten person to expire. The human
immune system is only so strong and it cannot fight all the infections off, so
the system fails and the subject dies allowing for resurrection.
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| Split personality anyone? |
Treatment with all known disinfectants such as povodone
iodine, isopropyl rubbing alcohol, hydrogen peroxide; antibiotics from
penicillin to the worlds’ strongest anti-virals have proven ill-effective. The
only known 'cure' for a bite from mortiis viventiis is the immediate death of
the bitten subject via decapitation or significant trauma to the brain.
Sidenotes:
-A note about the strength of a human jaw:
From the website of
dental health:
"Normal chewing
places about 68 lbs/sq inch of pressure on the back teeth. If you intentionally
clench your teeth you may increase that force to about 150 lbs/sq inch.
However, an individual who clenches and grinds their teeth subconsciously at
night can place up 1200 lbs/sq inch of force.
Sounds like an industrial grinding machine!" [1]
-Amputation should never be considered a viable treatment.
The chances of catching the infection before it gets into the bloodstream are
minute
-With amputation there is the SERIOUS risk of exsanguination
(bleeding to death) unless a proper tourniquet is applied and the bleeding
stopped, also there is greater risk of infection at the amputation site
-The resulting
outbreak from untreated zombie bites is simple mathematics. Infection is a
simple equation: You start with one zombie (Patient Zero as it has been known),
this one becomes two, two becomes four, four becomes eight and so on and so
forth spiraling outward exponentially until the human population is gone.
[1]
Dental Health Library Article Bite and Occlusion
http://www.dental--health.com/biteocclusionpohl.html
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