I’ve been reading this book, Stiff (which is quite good, really) and it had a chapter about decapitated heads, focusing mostly on the history of the guillotine, and the research that French doctors did to determine whether or not those heads actually felt anything after that fatal cut. (The guillotine was used, apparently, because it was considered more “humane” than the hangman’s rope so the question raised was whether it was really more humane or not.)
The author quotes a French doctor who was able to observe a guy whose head was just cut off. I’m too lazy to dredge up the book and type out his long quote, but basically as soon as the head was decapitated and hit the basket, the victim’s eyes blinked quickly several times. Then they closed (most would assume that the guy was dead at this point). But the doctor loudly yelled out the victim’s name, and the eyes slowly opened, and the pupils of the victim focused on the doctor. Eyes closed again, doctor yelled out the victim’s name again, once again the eyes opened, looked at the doctor with focus, then closed. After that, the eyes no longer would focus and it seemed like the head was really dead.
Oh. My. Gosh. I had no idea that this happened. I found some other cites (don’t know how reputable they are).
This is bizarre stuff. I’m not usually a morbid type but since decapitated heads have been such a subject of horror and science fiction stories (see the first cite that I linked to) I guess it’s natural to have some curiosity about the subject. I had no idea that there were claims that these heads were aware after the cut. Yikes.
(By the way, I highly recommend the book Stiff by Mary Roach. Read the reviews on Amazon.com to more thoroughly understand the book’s appeal.)
Beat me to it, Loach! I just looked up that article myself. Didn’t think to look through Cecil’s articles until zev mentioned it.
I can buy that there would be some awareness (several seconds—less than a minute), but if some are saying that minutes pass and the head is still aware, that I would find hard to believe.
Did the law enforcement get there quick enough to see the heads still bouncing down the road or, perhaps, did they bounce and roll the heads themselves trying to elicit a response?
I know the one direction my eyes will be looking if I ever get my head cut off and that’s straight down! Ugh, talk about the most brutal of realizations!
i saw that story aboutthe guy blinking and stuff on the history channel. except i seem to remember them saying that the doctor pumped warm sheeps blood into the head first. :eek:
Well, you’ve been had by your second “cite” about the neckbelts. It’s an old Onion article. I don’t have access to stuff that old, and I’m too lazy to dig out my books. But it’s definitely an Onion article.
This thread reminded me of a movie I watched as a very young child. Since it is such an early and dusty memory, I’m guessing that the montage of scenes that I remember are due to some sort of low level trauma from the shock of what I was watching. This of course has my adult self extremely curious as to what exactly I was watching.
Here’s what I remember: It was a period film that involved a scheduled guillotine execution. There was a man who’s job it was to store the guillotine blade and bring the blade to the town square at the appropriate time. A loved one of the person set to be executed was attempting to kill or otherwise delay the blade-keeper (thus preventing/delaying the execution), and almost succeeded, but not quite.
The memories of these few scenes are oddly vivid to me. I clearly recall the blade-keeper covering the blade with cloth and tucking it under his arm. I think the attempted assasin might’ve tried to either poison or stab him. Either way, the blade-keeper barely makes it to the town square and falls either dead or unconcious a few feet away from the guillotine, where the other folks involved in the execution are able to finish his job for him, foiling all efforts to interfer with the beheading.
