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Can you help me understand how a person who is decapitated via guillotine would experience excruciating pain?

I have always felt if they would legalize public hangings on Saturday mornings I would get a mini-donut stand and take it into town...

I got the beer trucks and porta-pissers!

I always thought the guillotine was a pretty effective way to reach a suitable end.
Strictly mechanical, instantaneous, quick bleed out, and with a little duct tape the perp could still have the option of an open casket funeral...

I'm sure Mississippi will do a bang up job of getting rid of em.

I'll take the tissue concession.

kneel them down on the courthouse steps and put a bullet in their head.

Why is it a vet can put a horse down with no evidence of suffering and educated people can not knock out a 200 lb criminal?

Thanks Doc!

A close friend of mine is a doc as well, though of all the medical things we've chatted about none are related to this...

Since you have researched this topic, i am confused about something.

Namely death by decapitation.

Can you help me understand how a person who is decapitated via guillotine would experience excruciating pain?

I can appreciate that having an appendage cut off would hurt (like a finger), but something as significant as completely severing the brain from the remainder of the nervous system seems pretty speedy.

When i've smashed something or seriously injured myself, i believe i've gone into shock and didn't really feel how badly i was hurt. Like cutting myself with a very sharp knife - i didn't really feel it right away.

Wouldn't decapitation be similar?

TIA

Well, I have to admit it's all speculation on my part, but at least it's informed speculation.

When the guillotine blade severs the head from the neck, it cuts through structures that are very rich in pain fibers at multiple levels: skin, soft tissue, and bone. All the nerves involved connect to the brain either through the high cervical spinal cord via the cervical plexus (1st, 2nd and 3rd cervical nerve roots, primarily) or through the hypoglossal nerve, which is a cranial nerve and connects directly with the brain.

As such, rapidly cutting off the head by guillotine at about the level of the 4th cervical vertebra will set off pain impulses from ALL of those nerves. Now, the blood supply to the brain is simultaneously severed, so the brain will only be able to "feel" those pain signals for about 7 seconds before consciousness fades due to hypoxia, followed within a few minutes by full-on brain death.

And of course, when the head falls off into the basket, it will be similar to the sensation of hitting one's head/face on the ground from a height of a meter or so... not really painful, but as stunning a blow as a good punch.

So. We know that the brain remains fully functional for about 7 seconds after decapitation, and we know that all the pain sensors in the head and neck will be firing from the trauma, so it's reasonable to assume that the victim will be very much aware of his imminent death and the pain of the decapitation for the rest of his (short) life.

So there unquestionably pain, and quite probably quite severe pain. The only problem is we don't know how that pain is experienced. As you point out, sometimes deep cuts are perceived as painless for a few moments after the injury, even though we know that physiologically the pain fibers are firing full power and speed immediately upon injury. Would that apply to decapitation? There is simply no way to know. But the story of the Frenchman who made eye contact with and blinked several times for his friends suggests quite strongly that the pain is real.

Then there's the problem of blood.

After reading accounts of the Reign of Terror, and descriptions of the gore involved on the busier execution dates, it is clearly apparent that decapitation is a really messy business. It wasn't uncommon for several wagonloads of straw to be saturated with blood on execution day, and blood flowed freely in the gutters, spattered the crowd, and soaked the guillotine and the scaffold so deeply that it was never dry and the stench of death hung over the place of execution for weeks after the executions of the Terror had ended.

Think about it: about 1/3 of the output of the heart goes to the head, and we circulate about 5 litres per minute at rest, and up to 15-20 LPM with exertion. I guesstimate a cardiac output of 8-10 LPM for a condemned man, with continuing cardiac activity for 1-3 minutes post-decapitation, which means the dying corpse will spew out something like a gallon of blood, all over the guillotine and the the floor and so forth.

Just another thought to brighten your day. Ain't I just a ray of f u c king sunshine?

No one on the left seems to care how an innocent unborn baby experiences pain when they are aborted but worry endlessly about trash that deserves to die.