Gory, morbid and possibly stupid question. Not for the weak stomached

Factual Questions
1

Don’t worry I’m NOT going Dahmer on you guys. I’m just bored and feeling in a mad scientist frame of mind this evening. I assure you I have no secret lab piled up with body parts. :stuck_out_tongue:

I have read the archival columns by Cecil about whether or not a severed human remains “aware” or conscious after decapitation. I think it is all related to the speed at which the head were severed.

I don’t know what the falling speed of a guillotine blade is, but my WAG is it is rather slow.

If one’s head were severed, let’s say at 1/1000 inch, by a laser beam, at the speed of sound, or supersonic speed, I think it would indeed remain aware for an undeterminable amount of time. I don’t know what the speed of nerves are but even as fast as they may be, I have feeling it would take a moment or more for the body to “catch-up” and realize, hey my head is severed, I am dead, why am I still thinking?

Assuming one’s head could indeed be severed with a laser beam at supersonic speed, two curious possibilities arise. If the subject were restrained and rendered completely immobile, the head could be severed but still rest upon the neck without separation. OTOH, the head could simply be removed entirely, separate from the body.

If the head-on-shoulders scenario were done, I think this would be the most likely manner in which a person would remain aware and alive. Theoretically, all of the nerves, arteries and vessels etc would remain aligned, and at least the blood supply would remain constant. If the subject survived, it would probably feel like total paralysis, if anything could be felt at all. Egads, what a frightening concept.

I am creeping myself out and will probably have nightmares about my head being lopped off, so I digress. Feel free to add anymore Frankenstein-ish theories yourself.

2

I suspect that the act of severing nerves, blood vessels, etc., would severely impair their function. I think that death would be the inevitible result, even if the loss of consciousness were prolonged by a swift process. Besides, I’ll bet that the pressure in the corotic (SP?) arteries would tend to lift the head and cause misalignment, speeding the loss of consciousness. I’d imagine the severed head would only remain conswcious for a few seconds, perhaps a minute at most.

I’m sure a doctor or even a med student could tell better than I why your proposed method of decapitation would result in a corpse sans (attached) head.

~~Baloo

3

Why is this giving me flashbacks of Reanimator?
Oh, yeah…that’s why. :eek:

I agree with Baloo, not only for the reasons stated, but also because a laser is going to cut by burning, which will damage the ends of the severed…components (vessels, nerves, etc.). This would render it rather immaterial whether they continue to line up at all: they still won’t be able to ‘communicate’ properly. Even if you could cut it with an instrument that would do no damage to the tissues (which I think is what you’re asking), the remaining blood pressure would screw with the alignment.

Now, if you could clamp that puppy on so that it couldn’t move…you just might get a Christopher Reeve situation. The problem you’d have with severing blood vessels, though, is that the cuts would leak.

And that’s bad for the carpet. :smiley:

4

A laser beam would not just cut, it would cauterize as it passes through the tissue. This would definitely impair nerve transmission.

Indeed, the pressure in the blood vessels would cause blood to spew everywhere. Every time your heart beats, the blood pressure in the major arteries rises to 120 mm Hg in a normal person. So the carotids would spew everywhere, as they would not be structurally intact at the break point. You may not lose conciousness as fast as with the guillotine, but you would definitely lose conciousness.

The trachea and lungs might still function, but with no nerve control (diaphragm controlled by C3-C5 nerves relatively high in the neck) this would be doubtful. May leak a little during exhalation (I believe it gets to about 5 mm Hg).

5

Regarding awarenes after decapitation:

I recall reading something a long time ago, about a police officer (or maybe it was a detective) who was required to attend an execution of a murderer in France, as a culmination to the case he had worked on. For reasons that escpae me right now, an arrangement was made that the criminal would signal if he remained cognizant immediately after the guillotime severed his head. The officer reported that the head in the basket did indeed wink at him.

I also recall reading about how a French revolutionary leapt onto the scaffold immediately after a particularly despised nobleman was beheaded. He snatched the head by it’s hair and brandished it to the crowd. When he scowled at the face, it suddenly scowled back at him, causing him to drop it in horror…

Both of these stories may well be myths, and the facial actions could be rationalised as unconscious nervous twitches, but they sure make your hair curl…

6

Wouldn’t severing the arteries cause blood pressure inside the head to drop to zero rather fast?

It is similar to a choke out in judo. (Check my user name if you wonder why that occurred to me). Getting choked out in judo or other sleeper holds causes unconsciousness in much less than 10 seconds, so I expect consciousness to end in the severed head about that fast.

Even after you are choked out, the legs can tremble, so previous posts about changes in facial expression after the head is severed are not necessarily wrong. Even unconscious victims could make faces, and these might even be (coincidentally) the same as some signal previously agreed to.

7

Here’s what The Man has to say on it:

8

a later column on the same subject which includes a modern anecdote: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_262.html

9

My guess is yhat if the head was clamped into a pressure position and a water cutting devise was used, you might live upwards of…3 minutes (?) maybe. Youch!!!

Related note: I saw a program on PBS (sorry, no cite) once that showed early nerve repair attempts. A Dr. cut the head off of one monkey and ‘attached’ it to another whole monkey. Producing a two-headed monkey. The whole monkey serving only to keep the severed head ‘alive’. The weird part - when the Dr. moved his hand from side-to-side in front of the head, the eyes followed it! Had I not seen it with my own eyes, I would not have beleived it. Obviously, social pressure shut him down. Now I like monkeys as much as the next guy, but had he been allowed to continue his research, C.R. might be making Superman 5 by now.