MECHANICAL SUFFOCATION.
Suffocation is the name applied to both the act of and condition resulting from the deprivation of atmospheric air. If the deprivation is due to mechanical interference, the term MECHANICAL SUFFOCATION is used.
Mechanical interference may be by pressure upon or obstruction within some portion of the respiratory tract. Suffocation by pressure upon the neck is called hanging when the constricting force is the weight of the body itself; and strangulation in all other cases. German writers designate strangulation by cords, ropes, and the like as Erdrosselung, and by the hand as Erwürgung; French writers do not make this distinction. In English the word throttling is probably oftener applied to strangulation by the hand than by cords.
The term suffocation is also applied in a special sense to the act and result of pressure on the mouth, nose, or chest and abdomen, stopping the breathing; or of obstruction within the respiratory tract; or of pressure upon the tract from the œsophagus, etc.; or of breathing of irrespirable gases.
Strangulation is almost always homicidal, hanging almost always suicidal, and suffocation (limited) usually accidental, but also often homicidal.
Strangulation may be admitted, therefore, as including all cases of suffocation by pressure on the neck, whether by cords or the hand; but excluding hanging.
It will facilitate the study of the subject if we use the word ligature as a general term to cover the many forms of cords, ropes, etc., used in strangulation and hanging.
The word GARROTING is often used to indicate the forcible compression of the neck by the hands of thieves. The assault is usually made from behind, and the victim is robbed while the throttling proceeds. The brevity of the process explains why death is not more frequent. The word garroting comes from the Spanish; criminal execution in Spain and Italy is usually by means of the GARROTE, a steel collar which is tightened on the neck of the condemned by a screw. The notorious thugs of the East Indies used sometimes a soft loin-cloth, at others a lasso or long thong with a running noose. In Turkey and some other Eastern countries the bowstring is a common mode of execution.
An examination of the reported cases of strangulation and hanging shows a great variety of forms of ligature: cords, ropes, thread, thongs, lassos, flexible twigs, bamboos, leather straps, girdles, turbans, fishing-nets, collars, cravats and other forms of neckwear, bonnet strings, handkerchiefs, sheets, etc. Women have even strangled themselves with their own hair (Case 34). Stones, sticks, coal, and other hard substances have sometimes been inserted in the ligature to increase the pressure (Cases 36, 38, 42, 43, 44). Drunken and otherwise helpless persons have been strangled by falling forward with the neck against a firm substance.