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]]
4. BY SMOTHERING.
In this act the transit of the air into the lungs is prevented by forcibly closing the nostrils and mouth. It is very obvious that such a mode of destruction can very rarely occur in an adult; for a comparatively feeble resistance will be sufficient to overcome the assailant in such an attempt. It may, however, occur accidentally; it is not difficult to imagine that a person, in a fit of intoxication, may be unable to extricate himself from a position in which he might fall, and in which respiration could not be performed. In children this mode of suffocation is less rare, and it may be either the result of design or accident, to which we shall have occasion to refer, when treating the subject of Infanticide.