South Carolina can execute death row inmates by firing squad, lethal injection or the electric chair, the state's high court ruled Wednesday, opening the door to restart executions after more than a decade.
All five justices agreed with at least part of the ruling. But two of the justices said...
Thank you for the reference. Having read most of it so far, I came across this passage:
Having disqualified Sue’s argument, Cabanis turns to Sömmerring’s thesis on the post-decapitation persistence of an active, conscious sensorium commune. Several facts argue against this. What is commonly known as a “rabbit punch” shows that a violent blow to the neck leads to an immediate loss of consciousness. Furthermore, a rapid hemorrhage deprives the brain of the blood it needs to function. Each of the individual circumstances brought together by the guillotine is enough to produce a true syncope. Cabanis concludes from this that the head and body of a man who has been guillotined endure no suffering and that death is as fast as the stroke of the blade.
I was trying to find the specifics, but there was a doctor who did some experiments during the terror. there was one head whose eyes popped open and looked right at him when he shouted his name, and another head that went into the same basket as his rival that bit the other head on the cheek and couldn’t be loosened for 2 hours.
if the guillotine blade went slightly higher, actually impacting the brain stem, it might be different, although I admit that we are all guessing. personally, if I were going to be guillotine’d, I would request that they replace the blade with a large weight and drop it directly on my head.
the guillotine might actually be a really bad way to go. scroll down to “History of the Debate”
Thank you for the reference. Having read most of it so far, I came across this passage:
I was trying to find the specifics, but there was a doctor who did some experiments during the terror. there was one head whose eyes popped open and looked right at him when he shouted his name, and another head that went into the same basket as his rival that bit the other head on the cheek and couldn’t be loosened for 2 hours.
if the guillotine blade went slightly higher, actually impacting the brain stem, it might be different, although I admit that we are all guessing. personally, if I were going to be guillotine’d, I would request that they replace the blade with a large weight and drop it directly on my head.
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