A beheaded body can make 32 steps

Academician Natalia Bekhtereva said: “One may not say that there is a part of a human brain that was studied better than another part of it.  The whole brain has been studied,  but not very well, really.  We have to find out a lot of peculiarities of a human brain. We know a lot about the organization of a body movement. We know several basic principles of emotional and thinking processes. The function of the administration of the entire internal sphere of a human organism was also studied thoroughly.”

However, the abilities of a human brain are very wide. Sometimes they are very surprising and even astounding. A brain is still a big riddle for scientists. It deems that everything that is happening in a human organism is subjected to cerebral activities. Is it really true?

In 1336 King Ludwig of Bavaria sentenced nobleman Ditz von Shaunburg and four of his associates to death penalty. They were sentenced to death for rebelling against His Majesty, and for disturbing the calmness in the country. The nobleman and his friends were to be beheaded. Before the execution the king asked Ditz to say his final wish. The nobleman asked the king to forgive his friends, if  his beheaded body runs them by. Schaunburg specified that the convicted were supposed to get in the line of eight steps from each other. The king burst into laughing, but he promised to fulfill the nobleman’s last wish. Ditz got down on his knees in front of a block. The executioner cut his head off, but the body jumped up and ran other convicted people by to the immense horror of the king and everyone who witnessed it. The beheaded body made 32 steps, having passed the last person in the line, tumbled down on the ground and remained quiet. The king kept his promise.

An infant was born in one of American hospitals in 1935. The baby did not differ from others – he was doing the things, that all babies do: sleeping, eating and making diapers poopy. The baby died all of a sudden. When the body was dissected, it turned out that the baby did not have the brain!

A German doctor, professor Hufland was once present at the dissection of the cranium of the patient, who allegedly died of  brain hemorrhage. The patient was of sound mind until his death. However, the results of the dissection were astounding. The guy had about 30 milliliters of water instead of his brain.

Bacteriologist Louis Paster suffered from a brain hemorrhage, when 46. His right cerebral hemisphere stopped functioning. However, the scientists lived 27 years more and made a lot of
scientific discoveries. Another interesting story was published in magazine Miracles and Adventures, as told by soldier Boris Luchkin. He used to be in an intelligence group during the World War II. They had to cross the front line  and go to the German rear. The commander of the group, a lieutenant, stepped on a mine. One of its fragments chopped his head off. Yet, the beheaded lieutenant remained standing, he unbuttoned his coat, took the map of their itinerary out, held it out to Luchnik and then fell down on the grass.

There are a lot of other interesting occasions like that. After astronomers make maps of billions of galaxies,  people will still be studying the brain that counted them all.