I would imagine that the rush of adrenaline prior to the decapitation would make those seconds of life seem more like minutes.
Yes, a slow death trying to drag one's limbs from an oil slick is always preferable to an instantaneous death.
I believe something like that story or that story was a part of the article. The author had compiled first person accounts from decaptiations around the world. It was a disturbing article and, given the nature of the 'experimental methodology' hard to draw conclusions from. But the accounts included doctors who did think that there was some consciousness after decapitation.
i belive your concious for 8 seconds after decapitation. It could depend WHERE your head was detached however. If your spine detached at the brain stem then death might be instantanious but if you cut through say C3,4,5 then you would still be alive untill the brain died of o2 deprivation
I read some where about a bloke experimenting with a bloke who was executed by asking the head questions which responded by yes and no awnsers by blinking once or twice.... The nearest I can find on the net is 'Dr Beaurieux' who conducted an experiment with the executed 'Henri Languille'. There is also Antoine Lavoisier a french scientist who was beheaded in 1794 who tried to bink for as long as possible after decap' and managed 15 secs.. this might be of help..... http://www.newscientist.com/backpage.ns?id=lw719 or http://www.everything2.com/title/Lifespan%20of%20a%20beheaded%20head if you read some of the above link there is also the case of Dr. Dassy de Lignières who pumps animal blood into a head which has been decapitated for 3 hours and he says the eyelids fluttered and the lips moved...(but I think this is a reactiom imo)
It depends on the method. Nice clean cut will yield maximum. Look at chiclens and how they run around with their heads chopped off.
john thats nerv inpulses, we are talking about the head itself. As i said if enough of the brain stem was still atached there is no reason the brain wouldnt keep working until it ran out of ATP and O2
Thanks for that ( gruesome ) info. You have jogged my memory and I now remember that the case I read about all those years ago was that of Lavoisier.
Myles you do realise why i said C3, 4, 5 dont you? Its an ambo's ryhme, c345 keep you alive. Below that the diapharm's neves arent severed so you can survive. Above that there is nothing the ambo's can do, you will die of O2 deprivation because above c5 are the nervs which run the autonomic nervious system so your whole body shuts down except your heart which has its own internal pacer and can keep running (though much slower than if its conected to the brain
Does anyone know how long a head can be kept artificialy alive (if at all), alive so that it is responsive that is...?
Cutting off the spinal cord makes the brain go blank due to shock for few seconds and then it is blank for ever. Lets hope so before getting decapitated..Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I don't know the first thing about anatomy but ,as I know you do, your explanation was sufficient for me to understand that the outcome of decapitation might depend on which part of the neck was severed. Thanks
a LONG time... Link... but seriously folks... yes heads remain conscious after decapitation... it was common in the guillotine-happy days of the French Revolution to have heads in the baskets trying to talk, looking up at the executioner and looking around... this is widely recorded history... it resulted in a practice of the executioner picking up the head out of the basket by the hair and holding it's face out to the crowd so the head(person)could see the crowd laughing and mocking it before expiring... this is history... it was so widely known doctors started doing experiments, some of which were the 'blinking' tests already mentioned... there were reports by several different sources of vicious criminal's severed heads actually biting each other in the basket they were in... actually a chicken, the body, lived and functioned for 18 months after beheading, the owners had to poke food into the hole to the stomach and it lived, in fact it grew from 2.5 ot 8 pounds in that time... it only died because the breathing tube got a blockage and the chicken suffocated... it wasn't nerve impulses at all... do a search about 'Miracle Mike the Chicken'...
Even IF that is true: "Since most of a chicken's reflex actions are controlled by the brain stem Mike was able to remain quite healthy."
Some (sick) doctor in the 1970s I believe tranplanted a monkey's head. Here's the video : http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/29025/
ops for some reason i forgot to mention i was talking about a broken neck not decapitation in my last post:/ If you cut the head off its not going to matter where the nervs come off the spinal collom oviouslyPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Go back, 1000, when decapitation was world-renowned... The brain can continue living without the body under circumstances, special if not, where we can have a head choopped off, and you are still awake to it's realism. Take for instance, the well-known phenom of a chicken without a head.
A friend back in high school told me that in the dark ages, they told people to keep their eyes moving back and forth until it wasn't possible. Lasted something like 10 seconds? How savage