HANGING AND STRANGULATION.
BY
DANIEL SMITH LAMB, A.M., M.D.,
Pathologist Army Medical Museum, Washington, D.C.; Professor of Anatomy Medical
Department Howard University, Washington; Secretary Association of American
Anatomists; Late Acting Assistant Surgeon United States Army;
President of Association of Acting Assistant Surgeons
U. S. A.; Member of Learned Societies.
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.