The suspension of a person by means of a cord, or some other ligature,
round the neck, by which death is produced by closing the trachea, and
preventing respiration.
Although we are in this case bound to admit that the immediate cause of
death is suffocation, yet we cannot deny that other injuries are often
produced by hanging, such as
1. _Pressure on the vessels._
2. _Pressure on the nerves._
3. _Fracture of the spine, and dislocation of the odontoid process._
1. _Pressure on the Vessels._—The red and livid hue of the face of
persons killed by hanging, very naturally induced a belief that
_Apoplexy_[42] was the immediate cause of death; while it is evident
that the pressure on the jugular veins must necessarily so prevent the
return of blood to the heart, as to produce an accumulation in the
vessels of the brain: _Dr. Hooper_ has a preparation of the brain of an
executed criminal, in which blood is seen extravasated among the
membranes; and various other cases have occurred, where dissection has
clearly demonstrated the existence of those vascular congestions and
sanguineous effusions, upon which apoplexy is supposed to depend; but
this merely goes to prove that apoplexy occasionally takes place from
hanging; it does not establish the fact of its being the common cause of
death on such occasions.[43] _Gregory_ made the following experiment to
shew that it is to the interception of air that death is to be
attributed; after having opened the trachea of a dog he passed a slip
knot round the neck, above the wound; the animal, though hanged,
continued to live and respire, the air was alternately admitted and
easily expelled through the small opening; but as soon as the
constriction was made below the orifice, the animal perished. _Mr.
Brodie_ hanged a dog, and as soon as it became insensible, the trachea
was opened below the ligature, upon which he breathed, and his
sensibility returned.
2. _Pressure on the Nerves of the Neck._ Although the pressure of a
ligature on the nerves of the neck cannot be considered as the immediate
cause of death in hanging, yet _Mr. Brodie_ has very justly observed,
that if the animal recovers of the direct consequence of the
strangulation, he may probably suffer from the effects of the ligature
upon the nerves afterwards. _Mr. Brodie_ passed a ligature under the
trachea of a Guinea pig, and tied it tight on the back of the neck with
a knot; the animal was uneasy, but nevertheless breathed and moved
about; at the end of fifteen minutes the ligature was removed; on the
following morning, however, the animal was found dead. On dissection no
preternatural appearances were discovered in the brain, but the lungs
were dark and turgid with blood, and presented an appearance similar to
that which is observed after the division of the nerves of the eighth
pair; I do not, observes _Mr. Brodie_ (_Manuscript Notes_) positively
conclude from this experiment that the animal died from an injury
inflicted upon the nerves of the eighth pair, but I think that such a
conclusion is highly probable; and it becomes an object of inquiry
whether a patient having recovered from hanging, may not, in some
instances, die afterwards from the injury of the _par vagum_.
3. _Fracture of the Spine, and Dislocation of the Neck._ The death of a
hanged person may occasionally take place by the luxation of the
cervical vertebræ, and the consequent injury of the spinal marrow; this
effect will be more likely to happen in heavy persons, and where the
culprit suffers on a drop that precipitates him from a considerable
height. It is said that _Louis_ discovered that of the two executioners
in Paris and Lyons, one dispatched the criminal condemned to be hanged
by luxating the head on the neck, whilst those who perished by the hands
of the other were completely strangled.
An animal, when first suspended, is observed to make repeated but
ineffectual attempts to inspire; violent convulsions of the whole body
then ensue, but which are not to be considered as the indications of
suffering, for they arise in consequence of the dark coloured blood
having reached the brain and spinal marrow; and the animal at this
period is necessarily insensible; hanging does not occasion a painful
death.[44]
The lips, nose, and all those parts in which the hue of the blood can be
observed, exhibit a dark colour; the countenance is distorted, the eyes
protruded, and frequently suffused with blood, the tongue is also forced
out of the mouth, and sometimes wounded, although it has been observed
that this phenomenon will entirely depend upon the position of the rope,
for that when it presses above the thyroid gland the tongue will be
pushed back, in consequence of a compression upon the _os hyoides_,
whereas if the pressure be applied under the _cricoid_ cartilage it will
have the effect of thrusting out the tongue. Blood is sometimes
discharged from the ears. It is not unusual for the sufferer to void his
urine, fæces, and even semen, in _articulo mortis_. The fingers are
usually bent, the nails blue, and the hands nearly closed; and the whole
physiognomy exhibits a highly characteristic appearance.
“But see, his face is black and full of blood,
His eye-balls further out than when he lived,
Staring full ghastly, like a strangled man,
His hair uprear’d, his nostrils stretch’d with struggling,
His hands abroad display’d, as one that grasp’d
And tugg’d for life, and was by strength subdu’d.”
_Henry_ VI, _Part_ ii, _Act_ iii, _s._ 2.
The dissection of a hanged person exhibits the same phenomena as those
described under the history of drowning, with the exception of the
absence of water in the _bronchiæ_. With respect to the quantity of air
found in the lungs, much discrepancy of opinion has existed. _Dr.
Goodwyn_, in his experiments on respiration, found that the lungs of a
person who had died from hanging, contained double the quantity of
gaseous contents of those who had died a natural death. This result,
however, is certainly not correct; for there is always, as we have
already stated, a very forcible expulsion of air from the lungs in the
act of strangulation, and they are accordingly found almost empty after
death. _Mr. Coleman_ hanged an animal, and then secured the _trachea_ by
a ligature, and removed the lungs; when, upon receiving their gaseous
contents in the hydro-pneumatic apparatus, he found their quantity was
very far less than that which would have been collected under other
circumstances.