Could Saint Sebastian have really survived?
by jarek_ielts7 on February 17, 2008
in students
Saint Sebastian was a man sentenced to death and executed by Roman archers in the 2nd century. His whole body was pierced by soldiers’ arrows. He survived and became the martyr and Christian saint. This incident was captured by many artists in pictures, sculptures or other forms (genres) of art. I had a chance to see Carlo Crivelli’s magnum opus ‘The Virgin and Child with Saints Francis and Sebastian’ painted in 1491 and I was given an opportunity to be a kind of ‘expert’ and decide if it was possible for Sebastian to survive after being pierced with so many arrows.
Having a bit of knowledge of human anatomy and physiology I first looked carefully if any of the arrows pierced a vital organ, the heart, brain or lungs. The injury of these normally result in a sudden death. The Saint had three arrows which in my opinion could have caused his sudden death, two were in the lungs and one was in the throat. The latter could have caused suffocation by destruction of the airway tract.
My second step was concerned with the arrows and wounds which could be the cause of an internal bleeding resulting in death. In this case I would consider the piercing of the thorax cavity and abdomen. At the end of my examining the saint’s wounds I checked the injuries that could be the cause of an external bleeding as a result of a puncture of veins and arteries – vessels carrying blood. And the lapse into death depends on the size of an injured vessel and follows the rule: the bigger the vessel the faster the death.
In my opinion, the injuries of Saint Sebastian done with so many arrows should have resulted in his death. But that was not the case, so either I’m not ‘an expert’, or he was not an ordinary man.
Saint Sebastian may not have been an ordinary man or it could all have been a matter of poetic license, so to speak, on the part of the artist. Either way, you’re ‘the expert.’ Very nice piece of writing!