guillotine
Jeff Suzuki
Re: "How do you know severed heads are still conscious?"
The evidence I've seen (which has been alluded to) was that during the
French Revolution, a number of medical students asked In The Name of
Science (science was popular back then, unlike now, when ignorance and
superstition seem to reign) that the condemned make some signal to
indicate whether or not they were still conscious.
Seeing as how it would be difficult for the condemned to do very much
(wave, talk, wiggle their toes...) the signal they settled on was a
blink. One reported that the head had time enough to blink twice,
which suggests a survival post-decapitation of around five to six
seconds (one assumes some time getting the head to a position where
its eyes are observable).
St. Denis was supposed to have carried his severed head for something
like a mile, before finally settling down at the place in Paris where
the church of the same name would eventually be built. If I recall my
hagiography correctly, he had his head cut off at Montmartre (which
means what you think it does).
Then there's the Green Knight...
Fujimoto
Mike Andrews
je...@math.bu.EDU (Jeff Suzuki) writes:
>Re: "How do you know severed heads are still conscious?"
{bandwidthectomy}
>Seeing as how it would be difficult for the condemned to do very much
>(wave, talk, wiggle their toes...) the signal they settled on was a
>blink. One reported that the head had time enough to blink twice,
>which suggests a survival post-decapitation of around five to six
>seconds (one assumes some time getting the head to a position where
>its eyes are observable).
{bandwidthectomy}
>Fujimoto
There's also the curious case of the French chemist, Lavoisier,
and his just-guillotined servant: Lavoisier appears to have held a
conversation of some seconds duration, according to *Crucibles:
the Story of Chemistry*. {Fascinating book, BTB. Read it!} As it
happens, Lavoisier got to use personal experience to check his
earlier work: he was shortened not long after his servant.
--
Michael Fenwick of Fotheringhay, O.L. (Mike Andrews) Namron, Ansteorra
Pray for the repose of the soul of Katherine Godfrey (1955-1994),
much loved and greatly missed.