At the height of the Pacific War, a strange theory about how long emaciated soldiers would live gained currency among starving Japanese troops fighting U.S. forces on the island of Guadalcanal.
Soldiers who could manage to stand on their own two feet would live for 30 more days, it said. Those who could not stand but could sit up would have three more weeks. The men who urinated while lying down would die in three days and those who could no longer talk would succumb in two, according to the theory.
