Haiti belief and scientific proof on zombie

Article 246 of the Haitian Penal Code It shall also be qualified as attempted murder the employment which may be made against any person of substances which, without causing actual death, produce a lethargic coma more or less prolonged. If, after the person had been buried, the act shall be considered murder no matter what result follows.

Article 246 of the Haitian Penal code states about producing a lethargic coma, which is someone referred to as a zombie.  As you can see in Haiti, zombie is accepted as reality in their culture.  And there are hundreds of cases reported about zombification every year, though the process of zombifying someone is still not clear.

Haitian doctors on the other hand attributed zombification to poisoning.  In order for someone to turn a person into a zombie, a zombie powder has to be use.  They called it coupe poudre.  The coupe poudre, consists of toxins from the cane toad, tree frog, tetrodotoxin which is a toxin from the puffer fish and others.

High amount of tetrodotoxin can be lethal to those who ingested it.  But if given with the right amount, the body can be put in a state of paralysis, their heart rate would slow down (others used it to fake death), and their metabolism rate decreases.  Their mind is also placed into a trance effect.

The irritant found in the toxin of cane toad can cause wound on the skin of the person.  With the combination of a heart stopping toxin and a skin irritating poison.  The doctor would perhaps wrongly declare someone for being dead.  Some of them managed to resurface again, and the wounds cause by the toxin would make them look like a zombie.

But the voodoo master is not done yet.  She prepared another medicine to administer the effect.  The second potion is believed to contain toxin that can cause hallucination to the victim.  They believe it is a way used by the Haitians to punish those who violated the law.

But others said that there is not enough toxins present on the zombie powder to stage a fake death.  They said that it is not even enough to affect humans.