Nightmare Death

When Nemecio Tutop, 37, went to bed in his quarters at a sugar-plantation camp on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, he seemed to be in perfect health. Next morning he was found dead, and there was not a mark of violence upon him. Last week the Honolulu coroner's physician, Dr. Alvin V. Majoska, listed Tutop as the 43rd in a baffling succession of healthy young adults, all Filipinos, who have died in their sleep in the last six years for no discoverable reason.

Dr. Majoska's autopsy showed that there had been bleeding in Tutop's inflamed pancreas (the big gland which produces insulin and digestive juices). The same had been true in 25 of Majoska's autopsied cases. This disorder, or "acute hemorrhagic pancreatitis," is far from rare on the U.S. mainland. There it may strike at any hour, waking or sleeping, but usually pain gives a longer warning before a crisis develops, and more patients recover than die.

His Filipino cases are different, Dr. Majoska argued: all died in their sleep. Moreover, Dr. Majoska did not believe that the 25 findings of pancreatitis explained the deaths, because there were 18 of the 43 cases, similar in all other respects, without it.

Most of the victims slept in dormitories, and companions reported that they had gasped, groaned, coughed or choked for a few moments before they fell silent. None showed signs of food or other poisoning. No intestinal parasites have been found. The victims were not neurotic. The only clue: many went to bed after a heavy meal, which might cause wild dreams. It has been suggested that the terror conceivably could lead to a fatal "reflex shock."

After eliminating everything he could think of from alcoholism to witchcraft, Dr. Majoska got one shred of evidence which supports the dream-death theory. It came from the Philippines (where Tutop left a wife and four children). There, similar cases have been reported and called bangugut, implying that the victim died in a nightmare.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.