"Does the head remain briefly conscious after decapitation?"
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My mind wanders, but don't worry. It's weak and can't get very far.
--Steve Allen
www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/8641/
Anyway, even if the thing at the beginning about blinking were true, it's possible he could have started blinking before decapitation, and continued afterwards w/o consciousness. Like the way a chicken's body continues to move after the head is removed.
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"It'd be a pity if every pencil on Earth suddenly collapsed in on itself and blew everything up."
-Krenim, TNO chat, September 30, 1999
http://www.logp.dk/guillotine/Pages/30sec.html
Excellent site on the guillotine BTW. And I say that without suicidal tendencies Lee.
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"One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor". George Carlin
(dig that man!) :]
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"Quadrilateral I was, now I warp like a smile."
--
Soul Coughing
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The Unknown Vulcan
http://www.phix-it.com/~perseus/
Kosh: "People usually pass out within five seconds of haveing their oxygen cut off, and I can't think of a better way to cut off oxygen!!!"
What do you mean? Certainly people can hold their breathes longer than that.
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--Then, said Cranly, do you not intend to become a protestant?
--I said that I had lost the faith, Stephen answered, but not that I had lost self-respect. What kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is illogical and incoherent?
James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
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The Unknown Vulcan
http://www.phix-it.com/~perseus/
[This message has been edited by DeadCujo (edited October 15, 1999).]
Your blood hasn't always given up all the oxygen in it by the time it returns to your heart for recirculation either, especially if you are lying still. I can see where the sudden cessation of circulation might cause more rapid loss of consciousness than simply holding one's breath.
Despite what you may imagine, the quick severing of the neck and spine caused by the guillotine blade is not the immediate, or even primary cause of death. The complete lack of freshly-oxygenated blood reaching the brain is what does the trick. A person would tend to lose consciousness very rapidly, though there would, of course, be considerable variation from one individual to the next.
"I gotta get a head!"
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My mind wanders, but don't worry. It's weak and can't get very far.
--Steve Allen
www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/8641/
[This message has been edited by Baloo (edited October 15, 1999).]
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Looking at cleavage is like looking at the sun. You don't stare at it. It's too risky. You get a sense of it and then you look away! - Jerry Seinfeld
Grewsome, but humain!! Gotta love it.------------------
"One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor". George Carlin
THIS WILL NOT TURN INTO A DEATH PENALTY THREAD!
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"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That "all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people . . ." To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition."
- Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1791
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"It'd be a pity if every pencil on Earth suddenly collapsed in on itself and blew everything up."
-Krenim, TNO chat, September 30, 1999
Actually, I'll bet the guillotine isn't painless. It's just that you'd only feel the incision along your neck. I would guess that the nerves which send pain signals to the brain attach above the point where the neck would be severed.
On the other hand, I once knew a friend who was a Vietnam vet who had been shot once or twice during his tour. He said that he didn't feel any pain for a few minutes. He knew he'd been hit, but his adrenal glands must've gone into overdrive.
My personal theory (bolstered by wee-hours collisions betwixt my toes and furniture) is that when an injury occurs, it can take several seconds before the sensation registers as pain. It's as if the nerves are saying:
"Uh-oh! This is bad! Somebody's gotta tell the brain about this!""Oh, no, I ain't telling the brain! You tell the brain!"
"Not me!"
"Well, somebody's gotta do it!"
"Tell ya what. We'll tell the brain on the count of three."
"Okay, I'll count: One, Two..."
"Wait! Wait! Just how bad is it?"
"I dunno, but the eyes just had a look. We'd better say something now!"
And so forth.
Actually, the Guillotine was, if not invented, then at least perfected by French physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin. He developed and tested (on cadavers) a "machine" that would be, in the opinion of the medical community at that time (1792) a more humane form of execution than the methods currently being employed.
Here's a link to a site that gives a bit more detail:
--Baloo
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My mind wanders, but don't worry. It's weak and can't get very far.
--Steve Allen
www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/8641/
Of course they wouldn't try to hold their breath after their head was chopped off. They'd have nothing to hold it in!
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"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That "all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people . . ." To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition."
- Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1791
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The Unknown Vulcan
http://www.phix-it.com/~perseus/