Shiz, Coriantumr and brain physiology.

I studied the brain in depth while I was studying nursing, and how complex and interesting it is! The human brain stands as the ultimate witness of God’s handiwork—with its billions of neurons, even more supporting cells, and hundreds of neurotransmitters. We will never figure out the complete wiring diagram. The complexity of the brain’s interconnections remains staggering. Yet it is this very complexity that makes it possible for God to govern the universe, using His own brain (1). “The Glory of God is intelligence” (2).

If you can get through the physiology of this introduction, no doubt you will be amazed at how one simple sentence from the Book of Mormon is yet another witness of elegant scientific proof that the Book of Mormon is true :) 


M. Gary Hadfield's fascination with the brain’s structure impelled him to become a neuropathologist, a physician trained in morbid anatomy, one who deals with diseases of the nervous system in the laboratory. As a new trainee, he was presented early on with the following intriguing case: A middle-aged man had undergone uncomplicated surgery for a routine hernia repair, but, while recovering, he strained forcefully to reestablish his urinary flow. The increase in blood pressure, thus produced, resulted in a brainstem hemorrhage. This left him with flexor rigidity (arms bent at the elbows and hands at the wrists. The lower extremities are likewise involved). Soon after this episode, he died. At autopsy, they found a ruptured aneurysm in a brainstem artery that accounted for his stroke. The bleeding had destroyed and compressed critical neural tissues that ultimately led to his death.

The brainstem connects the cerebrum to the spinal cord. It is highly complex, because it contains major pathways leaving the brain, others returning to it from the body, and the nuclei and nerve fibers of several cranial nerves that serve the eye muscles, the facial muscles, the ears, and other important organs. It also serves as a center for vital functions that control heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration, and it assumes several other important roles.

In fact, the brainstem is so vital to life, that it receives an extra rich supply of blood. This helps ensure survival of the individual even should the rest of one’s brain become severely damaged due to impaired blood flow. The patient may then live on in a vegetative, comatose state. So the brainstem’s hardiness becomes a mixed blessing.

But they had a dilemma on their hands: damage to the upper brainstem normally produces “extensor rigidity,” with the arms and legs outstretched, instead of “flexor rigidity.” The latter normally occurs following damage to the motor cortex in the cerebrum, not brainstem lesions. We have all witnessed flexor (decorticate) rigidity—in friends, family or strangers suffering cerebral damage from strokes. Most of us have also seen victims of cerebral palsy with flexor rigidity, apparent after birth, where there has been insufficient blood flow to the motor cortex during gestation and/or delivery. We feel pity and sorrow when viewing the paralyzed limbs of patients afflicted with flexor rigidity. In extreme cases, the arms, legs, hands, and feet are all curled up, distorted, and stiff. Extensor rigidity occurs more rarely, and most readers will not have encountered this condition firsthand.

 Dr. Harry Zimmerman, father of American neuropathology (at Montefiore Hospital and Albert Einstein School of Medicine in the Bronx, the doctor who autopsied Einstein’s brain), referred him to Dr. Fred Mettler, neuroanatomist at Columbia University (Manhattan), to solve the apparent  problem between the clinical findings and the neuropathology of this rare case. Together with Daniel Sax, the neurologist on the case, they published an explanation for this atypical picture (4).
This forced him to study the anatomy and physiology of the brainstem in depth, one of the most intricate and involved parts of the nervous system.  He is one of the few Mormon neuropathologists, if not the only one. So when he read again the story of Shiz in the Book of Mormon, alarm bells went off.

“…when they had all fallen by the sword, save it were Coriantumr and Shiz, behold Shiz had fainted with the loss of blood. And it came to pass that when Coriantumr had leaned upon his sword, that he rested a little, he smote off the head of Shiz. And it came to pass that after he had smitten off the head of Shiz, that Shiz raised up on his hands and fell: and after that he had struggled for breath, he died. And it came to pass that Coriantumr fell to the earth, and became as if he had no life” (5).
Critics of the Book of Mormon have had a field day laughing at this “absurd” account. The event obviously astonished both Ether and Mormon, who chronicled it. Mormon had served as the commanding officer of huge armies for three years, and had witnessed mass slaughter on the battlefield. Head injuries must have been rampant. But he singled out this extraordinary occurrence to include in his abridgement. Perhaps Ether and Mormon had concluded that Shiz’s last- minute “pushup,” was due to an unconquerable spirit, an unwillingness to die. This amazing event must have appeared supernatural to them. Hilarious!
But the account makes perfect anatomic sense. Coriantumr was exhausted, with barely enough strength left to dispatch his arch enemy, Shiz, commander of the opposing army. If Coriantumr’s stroke strayed through the base of Shiz’s skull—due to impaired control of his sword—instead of through the small of Shiz’s neck, it may well have cut through the upper brainstem, instead of severing the spinal cord. The resulting classic extensor rigidity would cause Shiz to raise up on his arms, then fall as he exsanguinated.
The blood pouring into his trachea would help enhance the eerie sound of “struggling for breath.” For just as brainstem reflex activity would force the extensor muscles in Shiz’s extremities to contract and elevate his frame, it would also cause his rib cage to expand and contract automatically, as it does in all of us when we are sleeping, or not trying to control our breathing, which is most of the time. This unconscious respiratory reflex is controlled by the lower brainstem.
“And it came to pass that after he had smitten off the head of Shiz, that Shiz raised up on his hands and fell: and after that he had struggled for breath, he died.” This single sentence, a simple footnote comment made in passing by ancient writers, stands dramatically apart in its own right, providing elegant scientific proof that the Book of Mormon is true.

This fascinating evidence must confound even the most jaded and skeptical Book of Mormon critic. Why? Because in a single sentence, Ether has captured not only one, but two major reflex actions mediated by the brainstem. So if this were the only sentence in the Book of Mormon, it would provide ample proof that the book was true. For neither Ether (the author), nor Mormon (the abridger) nor Joseph Smith (the translator) knew anything about the brainstem or its physiology!