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April 25, 2008

Strange But True!

Q. Identify the manner of execution that could vary from seemingly swift and minimally painful to protracted and gruesome. Not for the faint of heart.

A. Beheading, says “New Scientist” magazine. The height of decapitation technology was of course the guillotine, officially adopted by the French government in 1792 and promoted as one of the more humane ways of execution. Maybe so, but only if the executioner was skilled, his blade swift and the condemned sat still. At times, onlookers were aghast at the nearly instantaneous speed of death. Still, consciousness would linger briefly, with a 1991 study of rats showing it takes nearly 3 seconds for the brain to consume the oxygen from the blood in the head. The equivalent figure for humans has been estimated at 7 seconds. Various macabre historical reports from post-revolutionary France cited movement of the eyes and mouth for 15-30 seconds after the blade struck, though these may have been post-mortem twitches and reflexes.


 
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