I was going to ask “Can you strangle someone with their own intestines?” but I thought that that might be pushing the bounds of acceptability. So I’ll start with the basics…
Could human intestines (“Fresh,” so to speak. Very fresh. Still living.) really be used to strangle someone, or is the structural integrity of your average intestines insufficient for the task—would they tear or just disintegrate if you tried to use them like this?
And for the record, no, I’m not planning to try this out on anyone. I’m just curious about the practicality of a widely known but theoretical horror. (Well, not that widely known. But you know what I mean…)
Well, thanks for your patience,
Ranchoth
Well, based on my experience with pig intestines and the making of sausage, I’d say probably not with regards to small intestines, and almost certainly with regards to the colon. Not, mind you, that we ever used the large intestine as sausage casing, but it does tumble out along with other goodies in the earlier stages of the whole sausage production process, and it seems pretty tough. On the other hand, the small intestines used as casings burst open occasionally just from pushing them full of ground pork, which doesn’t bode well for their ability to take a lot of strain. I’ve never tried testing them to see how hard one has to pull to break them outright, though. Maybe if you used several coils it would work…
Well, based on my experience with moose and deer guts, I’d say yes. The tensile strength of intestinal tissue is pretty good. You’d have to use several loops, ut you could do it. But they would be very, very slippery.
I sort of hesitate to answer questions like this, lest I get a visit later on from grim-faced federal agents who are tracking down The Intestine Slayer.
But indeed, based on the myriad human intestines I have handled (on the job, that is), the fresh product is too fragile to be used as a weapon of this sort.
A stone-filled gallbladder might make an effective brass-knuckles substitute, though.
