Medical Jurisprudence, Volume 2 (of 3)

by John Ayrton Paris; J. S. M. Fonblanque

2. BY HANGING:

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.

3. BY MANUAL STRANGULATION.

Whether strangulation be induced by the suspension of the body by the neck, or by a ligature drawn tight, or by any other pressure upon the trachea, the physiological phenomena of death are the same; where, however, the person has died from manual strangulation, the marks about the neck will probably be more evident, and the discolouration will correspond with the marks of the fingers and nails; and we may also expect to find traces of violence upon the chest, for since the weight of the body is not obtained in such a case, additional force becomes necessary to consummate the fatal act. On opening the bodies of those who have been taken off by manual strangulation, Dr. Smith thinks that the usual appearances of this kind of death may not seem so conclusive as in other cases: an opinion in which we feel inclined to coincide; for in consequence of the greater resistance of the sufferer, the functions of respiration and circulation may continue in some measure for a longer period than in drowning or hanging, which must be considered as more summary processes of suffocation. In the case of a woman who had been thus strangled by two men, Littre found the tympanum of the left ear lacerated, whence flowed about an ounce of blood; the vessels of the brain were unusually turgid, red blood was extravasated in the ventricles, as well as at the base of the cranium; the lungs were distended and their membrane vascular; not more, however, than an ounce of blood was found in the right ventricle of the heart, and it was fluid and frothy, like that in the lungs; this circumstance deserves particular notice, and can only be explained by supposing that the respiration and circulation were not at once arrested, but that the unhappy sufferer was enabled to inhale air, at intervals, during the protracted struggle[^[45]]; and yet in certain cases, death may be very easily occasioned by manual strangulation, of which the murder of Dr. Clench, in the year 1692, may be adduced as an example; this gentleman was strangled in a hackney coach by two men, while driving about the streets of the city, without the coachman having the slightest knowledge of the transaction, until he afterwards found him quite dead, kneeling down with his head on the seat, and a handkerchief bound about his neck, in which was a piece of coal, placed just over the windpipe.[^[46]]