The most recent example of someone reportedly dying while laughing happened in 2003, when a Thai man in his 50s is said to have woken his wife up late at night laughing and otherwise vocalizing incoherently. After that point, the man in question stopped breathing, as the Sydney Morning Herald reports. Another modern example of laughter potentially causing someone to die came about in the 1980s, when a Danish man allegedly laughed so hard it killed him watching the classic comedy “A Fish Called Wanda,” starring John Cleese from Monty Python, as Vanity Fair explains. Among the 10 or so cases of death-by-chuckle, perhaps the best — and perhaps the darkest — happened all the way back in ancient Greece.
The poor ancient Greek philosopher who died from laughing, or so the story goes, was named Chrysippus (pictured), who lived around 200 B.C. (via the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Chrysippus, it’s said, found a donkey drunk on wine so funny, especially after the poor animal tried to eat some figs — perhaps to sober up — Chrysippus couldn’t stop laughing and died, per the Mirror. It isn’t so much that laughter itself may have killed Chrysippus, though, or any of the other poor souls who lost their lives with a laugh throughout the centuries. What was it, then, that could have caused all those people to meet their end?
ncG1vNJzZmhqZGy7psPSmqmorZ6Zwamx1qippZxemLyue82erqxnmJq%2Fpr%2BMsJ%2BarF2hrrazx6KloGWkpHqlscCtn2aqlZa5rcWMppyapqNk