For many centuries, people have wondered if the severed head of a person is capable of maintaining consciousness and thinking. Modern experiments on mammals and numerous eyewitness accounts provide rich material for controversy and discussion.
Decapitation in Europe
The tradition of beheading has deep roots in the history and culture of many peoples. So, for example, in one of the biblical second-canon books tells the famous story of Judith, a beautiful Jewess who deceived her into the camp of the Assyrians who besieged her hometown and, having crept into the confidence of the enemy commander Holofernes, cut off his head at night.
In the largest European states, decapitation was considered one of the most noble types of executions. The ancient Romans used it in relation to their citizens, since the process of decapitation is quick and not as painful as the crucifixion to which criminals without Roman citizenship were subjected.
In Medieval Europe, decapitation was also held in high esteem. The heads were cut off only to the nobles; peasants and artisans were hanged and drowned.
Only in the XX century was the decapitation recognized by Western civilization as inhuman and barbaric. Currently, beheading as a capital punishment is used only in the Middle East: Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Iran.
Judith and Holofernes.
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History of the guillotine
The heads were usually chopped off with axes and swords. At the same time, if in some countries, for example, in Saudi Arabia, executioners always underwent special training, then in the Middle Ages, ordinary guards or artisans were often used to carry out the sentence. As a result, in many cases, it was not possible to chop off the head the first time, which led to terrible torment of the condemned and the indignation of the crowd of onlookers.
Therefore, at the end of the 18th century, the guillotine was first introduced as an alternative and more humane instrument of execution. Contrary to popular misconception, this instrument did not get its name in honor of its inventor, the surgeon Antoine Louis.
The godfather of the death machine was Joseph Ignace Guillotin, professor of anatomy, who first proposed using a mechanism for decapitation, which, in his opinion, would not cause additional pain to convicts.
The first sentence was carried out with the help of a terrible novelty in 1792 in post-revolutionary France. The guillotine made it possible to actually turn human deaths into a real conveyor belt; thanks to her, in just one year, the Jacobin executioners executed more than 30,000 French citizens, staging a real terror of their people.
However, a couple of years later, the decapitation machine gave a gala reception to the Jacobins themselves, to the cheers and hooting of the crowd. France used the guillotine as a capital punishment until 1977, when the last head in European territory was cut off.
The guillotine was used in Europe until 1977.
But what happens physiologically during beheading?
As you know, the cardiovascular system through the blood arteries delivers oxygen and other essential substances to the brain, which are necessary for its normal functioning. Decapitation interrupts the closed circulatory system, blood pressure drops rapidly, depriving the brain of fresh blood flow. Suddenly deprived of oxygen, the brain quickly ceases to function.
The time during which the head of the executed in this case can remain conscious depends largely on the method of execution. If the inept executioner needed several blows to separate the head from the body, blood flowed from the arteries even before the end of the execution - the severed head had long been dead.
Charlotte Corday's head
But the guillotine was the perfect weapon of death, her knife cut the criminal's neck with lightning speed and very carefully. In post-revolutionary France, where executions took place in public, the executioner often raised his head, which had fallen into a basket of bran, and mockingly showed it to a crowd of onlookers.
For example, in 1793, after the execution of Charlotte Corday, who stabbed one of the leaders of the French Revolution, Jean-Paul Marat, according to eyewitnesses, the executioner, taking the severed head by the hair, mockingly whipped her on the cheeks. To the amazement of the audience, Charlotte's face turned red and his features twisted into a grimace of indignation.
This is how the first documentary eyewitness report was compiled that a person's head severed by a guillotine is capable of retaining consciousness. But far from the last.
The scene of the murder of Marat by Charlotte Corday.
What explains the grimaces on your face?
The debate about whether the human brain is able to continue thinking after the beheading has been going on for many decades. Some believed that the grimaces that wrinkle the faces of the executed were due to the usual spasms of the muscles that control the movements of the lips and eyes. Similar spasms have often been observed in other severed human limbs.
The difference is that, unlike the arms and legs, the head contains the brain, the thinking center that can consciously control the movement of muscles. When the head is cut off, in principle, no trauma is inflicted on the brain, so it is able to function until a lack of oxygen leads to loss of consciousness and death.
Severed head.
There are many known cases when, after cutting off the head, the body of the chicken continued to move around the yard for several seconds. Dutch researchers conducted studies on rats; they lived for 4 more seconds after decapitation.
Testimonies of doctors and eyewitnesses
The idea of what a severed head of a person can experience while remaining fully conscious is, of course, terrible. A US Army veteran who had a car accident with a friend in 1989 described the face of his comrade who had his head blown off: "At first it expressed shock, then horror, and in the end, fear gave way to sadness …"
According to eyewitnesses, the English king Charles I and Queen Anne Boleyn, after being executed by the executioner, moved their lips, trying to say something.
Strongly opposing the use of the guillotine, the German scientist Sommering referred to numerous doctors' notes that the faces of the executed were bent in pain when doctors touched the cut of the spinal canal with their fingers.
The most famous of this kind of evidence comes from the pen of Dr. Boryeu, who examined the head of the executed criminal Henri Langil. The doctor writes that within 25-30 seconds after decapitation, he twice called Langil by name, and each time he opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on Boryo.
Mechanism for the execution of the death penalty by beheading.
Conclusion
Eyewitness accounts, as well as a number of experiments on animals, prove that after decapitation, a person can retain consciousness for several seconds; he is able to hear, look and react.
Fortunately, this information may still only be useful to researchers in some Arab countries where decapitation is still popular as a legal capital punishment.