Death by a thousand paper cuts.

[alice_in_wonderland]

I suppose most people are familiar with the idiom 'death by a thousand paper cuts.'

I'm wondering if such a thing would actually kill you.

Lets rule out obscure things like necrotizing faciitis or other external bacteria type thingys.

Would the 1,000 cuts kill you? How? Exsanguination? Pain? Something else?

Do tell. Uh, answer is not needed fast.

[Kilmore]

If they all happened at once, I imagine you might die of shock. Also, there would have to be considerable force to propel a thousand pieces of paper to where they'd cut someone like stationery grapeshot. That definitely could prove fatal. Taken one after the other, it seems more like torture.

[Johnny L.A.]

I've never heard 'death by a thousand paper cuts'. I've always heard it as 'death of a thousand cuts'.

[Duckster]

Originally Posted by Johnny L.A.

I've never heard 'death by a thousand paper cuts'.

It's the government bureaucrat version.

[Scarlett67]

The following spoiled link to a Wikipedia article contains a somewhat grainy photograph of a nude person who has been/is being sliced. Moderately gory.

SPOILER:

Wikipedia link

[sitchensis]

The size of cuts they were taking, I doubt they would get past 10. That picture’s sure not NSFV (Not Safe From Vomit)

[Boyo Jim]

Impossible to answer without some specificity about the length, depth and location of the cuts.

People certainly have been lashed to death, and a lash tears the skin open.

If you want to be very liter about them all being like normal paper cuts, then I am really doubtful. A lot of paper cuts don't even bleed, so we're left with the question of dying purely from pain.

Does having a heart attack along the way count?

[Siam Sam]

Originally Posted by Johnny L.A.

I've never heard 'death by a thousand paper cuts'. I've always heard it as 'death of a thousand cuts'.

Same here. And in Gary Jennings' excellent novel The Journeyer, a fictional account of Marco Polo's travels, the death by a thousand cuts is very graphically explained, and performed on a couple of characters, and it ain't pretty. (The "artiste" was skilled in keeping you alive as long as he wanted, no matter the damage done.)

[Rhythmdvl]

What if all thousand cuts were in the same place?

[mac_bolan00]

using a very sharp knife, the cuts are distributed around the body. the cuts do not fully lacerate the skin but only partly through. this is supposed to make the wound bleed continuosly. so you die from bleeding.

[Rhythmdvl]

Why continuously? I've had some bad paper cuts, but none bled continuously. A true paper cut (as opposed to ripping open my arm on a clamshell package) almost by definition can't be that deep. But is it safe?

Being generous, let's say each cut puts out ten drops of blood. Looking at Wiki, the largest easy-to-compare drop is the medical drop at 1/12 mL. So let's be even more generous (and make the math easier) and say each cut puts out 12 drops. That's 1 mL per cut. If the average body contains between 5 and 6 liters of blood, that's quite a drop (heh).

Can the average human withstand that loss and survive?

[CookingWithGas]

It's not paper cuts, just cuts. Sounds like someone inserted "paper" as a joke.

I did not realize this was ever a literal form of torture, I always thought it was a metaphor.

[Siam Sam]

Originally Posted by CookingWithGas

It's not paper cuts, just cuts. Sounds like someone inserted "paper" as a joke.

I may have seen that in a Dilbert cartoon.

[LSLGuy]

A friend of mine was attacked by the village idiot / bully one night. Typical 40 y/o suburbanite set upon by mean drunk 6'3" 300lb 22 y/o farm boy.

My pal's only defensive weapon was a small swiss army knife with a 1 - 1/1-2" blade. He slashed the bad guy pretty thoroughly on the arms & face, then shouted "Hey look, you're bleeding to death!!". The guy looked, panicked, & took off. Bad guy was arrested after he showed up 20 minutes later at the local hospital. Would the untreated wounds have been fatal? I have no clue. But it did add up to a bunch of blood lost.

[Rhythmdvl]

Originally Posted by LSLGuy

A friend of mine was attacked by the village idiot / bully one night. Typical 40 y/o suburbanite set upon by mean drunk 6'3" 300lb 22 y/o farm boy.

Somehow the first line of your post made me think you were quoting song lyrics. Spent a second looking at them and trying to think if I recognized it.

[KneadToKnow]

Originally Posted by Johnny L.A.

I've never heard 'death by a thousand paper cuts'. I've always heard it as 'death of a thousand cuts'.

Concur, as others have.

[CookingWithGas]

Originally Posted by Rhythmdvl

Somehow the first line of your post made me think you were quoting song lyrics. Spent a second looking at them and trying to think if I recognized it.

And when the cuttin' was done the only part that wasn't bloody was the soles of the big man's feet.

[Saint Cad]

Originally Posted by alice_in_wonderland

I suppose most people are familiar with the idiom 'death by a thousand paper cuts.'

I'm wondering if such a thing would actually kill you.

Lets rule out obscure things like necrotizing faciitis or other external bacteria type thingys.

Would the 1,000 cuts kill you? How? Exsanguination? Pain? Something else?

Do tell. Uh, answer is not needed fast.

I think that by leaving out bacteria you are hindering the discussion. Obviously leaving out rare bacteria, what about a simple staph infection. Now multiply by 1000. Could the body handle that?

[Yllaria]

Originally Posted by Johnny L.A.

I've never heard 'death by a thousand paper cuts'. I've always heard it as 'death of a thousand cuts'.

Originally Posted by Siam Sam

Same here. And in Gary Jennings' excellent novel The Journeyer, a fictional account of Marco Polo's travels, the death by a thousand cuts is very graphically explained, . . .

Originally Posted by CookingWithGas

It's not paper cuts, just cuts. Sounds like someone inserted "paper" as a joke.

I did not realize this was ever a literal form of torture, I always thought it was a metaphor.

Originally Posted by KneadToKnow

Concur, as others have.

I also concur. "Death of a Thousand Cuts" is a form of torture. "Death of a Thousand Paper Cuts" means you hate your job.

Originally Posted by Duckster

It's the government bureaucrat version.

[Parenchyma]

Losing a tiny drop of blood with each cut can do it. I have seen a kitten so infested with fleas that the cumulative blood loss from all those little bites dropped its packed cell volume down to 5% (from a normal of 30 to 40%). It didn't make it.

[LSLGuy]

Originally Posted by CookingWithGas

And when the cuttin' was done the only part that wasn't bloody was the soles of the big man's feet.

According to my pal the bad guy really did look pretty amazingly bloodied from what my pal knew to be not that many not that severe small cuts. Even trivial face wounds bleed like mad.

[aruvqan]

Originally Posted by Saint Cad

I think that by leaving out bacteria you are hindering the discussion. Obviously leaving out rare bacteria, what about a simple staph infection. Now multiply by 1000. Could the body handle that?

Dudes, they cut slices of body *off* in the classical chinese version. Trust me, if you google image it, there is more than one very clear image of a guy with ribs showing, chunks of muscle and skin off the thighs, arms ... there is no surviving something like that, once the shock sets in you are going to bleed out [if they didn't garrotte you or some other final act]

The 1000 is poetical ... not realistic. Though I suppose if you kept the sliced off bits very small you might be able to do it.

[alice_in_wonderland]

So I did actually mean 'death of a thousand PAPER cuts.

It's obvious to anyone that the death of a thousand cuts method of torture would be fatal in short order. I'm interested in the other - and to be fair to me, there are about 500,000 hits on google for death of a thousand paper cuts, so it's not like I made it up.

Regarding the answers to my OP:

Rythymdvl: if 12 drops = an ML then 1,000 cuts would result in 1,000 MLs of blood lost or a litre. I believe a typical blood donation is about 500 ML so I imagine 1 L probably wouldn't kill you, but I'd be happy to hear other opinions.

Saint Cad - I was ruling out bacteria because it's kind of obvious. You could die of one paper cut if bacteria got in it. I'm thinking of something more directly related to the number of paper cuts.

And for arguments sake, they don't have to be little wee paper cuts - I've had some nasty ones from handling cardboard and whatnot, so lets say it's a mix of small, medium and large paper cuts.

Parenchyma - can you elaborate? I understand the words in your post, but I'm not sure what they mean - what would a human's pack blood volume usually be? What sort of drop could they expect if they lost a liter of blood (as per Rythmdvl's calculations)? What sort of clinical effects would such a drop have? Well, other than kitten death.

[Siam Sam]

Here we go: Death by a Thousand Cuts, by an odd coincidence used by imperial China for about a thousand years.

[Gukumatz]

How about sensory overload or the heart's inability to keep the blood pressure up, what with all those leaks? At that point you're talking of at least a class 2, if not 3, hemmorhage. Shock is guaranteed from the blood loss alone, much less the pain, so you won't be able to effect any coping mechanisms like elevating your extremities or putting pressure on more serious cuts.

It depends on the time aspect as well. If the thousand paper cuts appear instantly, your brain would probably turn off in protest, but over several days with regular, healthy meals and time to sleep, it could probably be managed. At least if you remove all the side issues and complications like bacteria and pre-existing conditions like diabetes and haemophilia.

[sitchensis]

From the photo it looks as if they are skinning the guy. If a human is like most animals than once you can get a firm grasp of the skin it’s mostly tearing with short quick cuts on the connective tissue under tension. I just don’t know, or want to know, how many paper cuts it would take to be able to get a grasp of the skin.

[alice_in_wonderland]

Originally Posted by sitchensis

From the photo it looks as if they are skinning the guy. If a human is like most animals than once you can get a firm grasp of the skin it’s mostly tearing with short quick cuts on the connective tissue under tension. I just don’t know, or want to know, how many paper cuts it would take to be able to get a grasp of the skin.

?? What on earth are you talking about? Why would it even be necessary to grab the skin? I'm asking about 1,000 regular old paper cuts.

[CookingWithGas]

Originally Posted by alice_in_wonderland

So I did actually mean 'death of a thousand PAPER cuts.

It's obvious to anyone that the death of a thousand cuts method of torture would be fatal in short order. I'm interested in the other - and to be fair to me, there are about 500,000 hits on google for death of a thousand paper cuts, so it's not like I made it up.

The second hit is this thread. The others, as far as I could be bothered with, use the phrase ironically to refer to things like this:

The proposed federal money funding Planned Parenthood is around $75 million, and even though this may be considered small, remember that our economy is being killed by a death of a thousand paper cuts. Small amounts of money must be scrutinized to fix the overall problem.

I could not find a literal usage. Not saying you made it up, but it's not the original phrase.

[alice_in_wonderland]

Originally Posted by CookingWithGas

I could not find a literal usage. Not saying you made it up, but it's not the original phrase.

Yes? And your point is what, exactly?

Do you actually have an answer to the OP? Paper cuts. 1,000 of them. Would it kill you? If so, how?

[Saint Cad]

Originally Posted by alice_in_wonderland

Saint Cad - I was ruling out bacteria because it's kind of obvious. You could die of one paper cut if bacteria got in it. I'm thinking of something more directly related to the number of paper cuts.

But my point is we can assume that the body can fight off the relatively small infection from a small papercut without treatment. Is it possible that you could die from an infection in just one cut? sure. You could also bleed to death if your blood doesn't clot. But in the schema of what is reasonable, when do a whole bunch of little infections become sepsis that the body cannot deal with?

[alice_in_wonderland]

Originally Posted by Saint Cad

But in the schema of what is reasonable, when do a whole bunch of little infections become sepsis that the body cannot deal with?

Humm. That's a good point.

Ok, so little infections are allowed, but flesh eating bacteria is not, just because it's sort of getting away from the point.

So, would a bunch of little infections kill you?

[dracoi]

I just thought I'd add that I have had paper cuts that bled like a *bleep*! Of course, most don't, but if you were really trying to kill with paper cuts, you'd be aiming for deeper and more severe cuts.

If we were to bump up the 1 mL number to even 2 or 3, you'd be talking about some serious blood loss. Repeated cuts in the same location could make the cut pretty deep. And a paper-cut killer would go for the most sensitive areas: eyes, neck, genitals, etc.

So I think it's safe to conclude that you could kill someone with a thousand intentionally placed paper cuts, but probably not with a thousand random or accidental cuts.

[Parenchyma]

Originally Posted by alice_in_wonderland

Regarding the answers to my OP:

(snip)

Parenchyma - can you elaborate? I understand the words in your post, but I'm not sure what they mean - what would a human's pack blood volume usually be? What sort of drop could they expect if they lost a liter of blood (as per Rythmdvl's calculations)? What sort of clinical effects would such a drop have? Well, other than kitten death.

I think a human's PCV is in the same range or a little higher. Losing a liter is only losing about 20% of the red blood cells (I do know that a human's total blood volume is about 5 liters). For the kitten it lost more like 80% of its red blood cells. Its gums were stark white without a hint of pink.

[mac_bolan00]

Originally Posted by Parenchyma

Losing a tiny drop of blood with each cut can do it. I have seen a kitten so infested with fleas that the cumulative blood loss from all those little bites dropped its packed cell volume down to 5% (from a normal of 30 to 40%). It didn't make it.

i like your nick. i used to have a kidney stone problem.

[Shmendrik]

1 ml of blood loss sounds like a lot for one paper cut. In any case, even a total of 1 L would be a bit less than 20% blood loss, over a period of more than an hour, assuming 5 seconds per cut. You'd probably feel a bit woozy if you tried to stand up quickly but it certainly wouldn't kill you.

[Boyo Jim]

Can we dip the paper in poison? That would certainly change the equations.

Or make the thousand cuts in the exact some place -- it would would be like sawing in. I suspect, though, that at some point when the blood starts flowing more freely, it would saturate the paper making it ineffective as a cutting tool.

[CookingWithGas]

Originally Posted by alice_in_wonderland

Yes? And your point is what, exactly?

Do you actually have an answer to the OP? Paper cuts. 1,000 of them. Would it kill you? If so, how?

My point was that it's not an idiom, it's an ironic expression. And I thought the OP was motivated by the idea that it was intended literally. Apparently it was motivated by "what would happen if we took this ironic expression and actually applied it literally." My bad.

[chorpler]

A Horizon/Nova special on the Amazon flood plain claimed that when the mosquito eggs hatch, billions of mosquitoes descend on the local cattle populations, and some of them have died from exsanguination just from mosquito bites. But it took about a million bites, they said. Very disturbing photographs of cows covered in mosquitoes and dead cows covered in bites.

Hey, I thought that the mosquito version of this question had been discussed before. Looks like I posted the same recollection there.

And hey, this much older discussion actually gives reference to a 1981 article in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association about cattle dying from mosquito bites.

So evidently, a large number of tiny wounds can be fatal. Now, of course, mosquitoes have anticoagulants in their saliva, which might make it easier for them to bleed you dry. On the other hand, even assuming that a paper cut only bleeds a single drop, that's still 10-20 times the amount of blood that a mosquito takes, so you wouldn't need nearly as many paper cuts as bites.

So ... perhaps a thousand paper cuts might be enough to bleed you to death, if they were heavy bleeders ... probably not, but it might work.

Maybe we could allow the person inflicting the cuts to keep doing the whole "Nine hundred seventy seven ... nine hundred seventy eight ... nine hundred ninety seven ... wait, was that ninety or seventy? ... doggone it, I'm starting over. One ... two ..." routine until you sustain enough cuts to be lethal.

[C K Dexter Haven]

FYI, Cecil's column this week is about this topic: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/...-thousand-cuts

Since this thread is only a month ago or so, I'm leaving it open. However, I'm suggesting that comments on Cecil's column be put in the "Comments on Cecil's Column" forum, here: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/...7#post13952317

[senpai71]

Well you could use these: http://www.beastpieces.com/2010/10/paper-saw-blades/

But seriously, I'm pretty sure they can make circular saw blades of paper - as the axle spins, the paper 'stiffens' and can cut most anything - just one cut from one of those could do some serious damage!

Looking for pictures...

[RoeCocoa]

Skimming this thread has made me woozy. Before I pass out, I'd like to ask if losing the basic structural integrity of the skin would be enough to cause death, even without the shock and bleeding. I mean, skin is important for regulating body temperature, right? If you somehow missed most of your capillaries, but damaged a sufficient number of sweat glands and integumentary nerve endings, would that be enough to kill you?

[alindallas]

One of the guys on Jackass paper-cut his tongue. It about killed me watching it.

[Clothahump]

Originally Posted by Siam Sam

Same here. And in Gary Jennings' excellent novel The Journeyer, a fictional account of Marco Polo's travels, the death by a thousand cuts is very graphically explained, and performed on a couple of characters, and it ain't pretty. (The "artiste" was skilled in keeping you alive as long as he wanted, no matter the damage done.)

He was referred to as The Fondler, IIRC. It's been a while since I read that book....off to the library I go!