LA MORT PAR LA DECAPITATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 1957, 23 May 1889, Page 31

LA MORT PAR LA DECAPITATION.

DOBS CONSCIOUSNESS SURVIVE IN THE B.EVERED HEAD. , , A volume has just been published, at Paris in which Dr Paul Loye, under the title of "La Mort par la Decapitation," studies the question as to whether, after decapitation, consciousness survives for a-short time in the severed head and physical suffering is felt in both parts of the executed body. • Every time a head falls under the sword 'or under the executioner's axe, says DrLoye,. the imagination of the spectators has, in the physiognomy of the victim, looked for proof of the survival of will and consciousness. The eyes turned, which was a sign of pain ; the lips moved, which showed that they wanted to speak; the mouth opened, in order to bite, in a kind of fury. There is not a movement of the i ace which has not been interpreted as a mark of the continuation of feeling. And ever since the guillotine mowed down the heads of multitudes 'during the reign of terror, scientists have stood around the scaffold, bidding all their ;humane faculties vanish,, and concentrating their whole, intellect on the one question — " Does consciousness remain after the vic•tim's head is severed from the body?" „ , In connection . with his -belief Dr Loye quotes a terrible story told • M. Petitgand 'about an Anamitewho was beheaded by the 'sword in 1875 at Saigon:— " The place- of execution' was the Plain of Tombs, a vast sandy tract, serving as cemetery to theAnamites and the Chinese. Four Anamite pirates, taken with their armsin their hands, were to be beheaded. , The chief of the band, a man- in the prime- of life, ener-, ,getic, muscular, brave without boasting, and firm to,> the very last, had attracted my 'special attention, and I decided to make my observations on him only. , Without losing . sight of him for a single moment I exchanged a few words in a loud voice with the officer in charge, and, noticed that the patient was also looking at me with the liveliest attention. The preparations having been completed, I took my stand at a distance of about two yards from ,him. He knelt down, but before bending his' head he exchanged a rapid look with me. " His head fell down at the distance of about a yard and a quarter from where I stood. It did not roll in- the usual way, but stood with the surface of ,the wound resting on the, sand, a position by which the. hemorrhage 'was accidently reduced to a minimum. At I this moment I was terror-stricken at seeing the eyes of the doomed man fixed frankly on my eyes. Not daring to believe in % conscious manifestation, I went quickly to one side of the head, lying at my feet, and I found that the eyes followed me. Then I ' returned to my first ppsition ; still the eyes went with me for a short distance and then quitted . me quite suddenly. The , face expressed at that moment a conscious agony, the agony of a person in a state of acute • asphyxia. The mouth opened violently as if to take in ,a breath of air, and the head, thrown off its equilibrium by the motion, rolled oyer. This contraction of the maxillary muscles was last sign of life, Since the moment of the decapitation from 15 to 20 seconds had passed.'.'