EXPERIMENTAL HANGING.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1683, 7 January 1888, Page 3

EXPERIMENTAL HANGING.

Amongst the papers read before the .French Society for the Advancement of Medicine at its meeting at Toulouse one by Dr Gross, of Geneva, arising from the observation of two cases of death by hanging, in both of which the neose did not cross the neck obliquely, and the larynx not being compressed, breathing could of course take place, and the death that eventually resulted was not caused by suffocation, but must have been duo to some other cause. The doctor’s unquenchable thirst for knowledge led him to experiment in a somewhat determined manner upon himself. On firm compression of both sides of the neck without, however, pressing on the larnyi, for two minutes, he completely lost consciousness’ from cerebral congestion, produced by the obliteration of the channels of the great blood vessels of the neck. He then constructed a hoi-lowed-put compress, by which the vessels could be compressed without interference with respiration, and placed in situ. He invariably lost consciousness within two minutes. The loss of consciousness was not preceded by either agreeable or. disagreeable sensations the only feeling was one of , warmth and burning in the head. No convulsions took place at any stage of the proceedings. He concludes from his experiments that death could take place even if the feet of suicide . touched the ground, and thatin hanging'it ordinarily results from cerebral congestion rather than want of breath. —•Medical Press.