Articles from Aids To Forensic Medicine And Toxicology
Marriage And Divorce
Digitalis
Camphor
The Inebriates Acts
Duty Of Practitioner In Supposed Case Of Poisoning
Duration Of Pregnancy
Modes Of Sudden Death
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Unnatural Offences
Mental Unsoundness
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Death By Hanging
In hanging, death occurs by asphyxia, as in drowning. Sensibility is
soon lost, and death takes place in four or five minutes. The eyes in
some cases are brilliant and staring, tongue swollen and livid, blood or
bloody froth is found about the mouth and nostrils, and the hands are
clenched. In other cases the countenance is placid, with an almost
entire absence of the signs just given. The mark on the neck, which may
be more or less interrupted by the beard, shows the course of the cord,
which in hanging is obliquely round the neck following the line of the
jaw, but straight round in strangulation. In judicial hanging, death is
not due to asphyxiation, but, owing to the long drop, the cervical
vertebrę are dislocated, and the spinal cord injured so high up that
almost instant death takes place. On dissection the muscles and
ligaments of the windpipe may be found stretched, bruised, or torn, and
the inner coats of the carotid arteries are sometimes found divided. In
ordinary suicidal hanging there may be entire absence of injury to the
soft parts about the neck, the length of the drop modifying these
appearances. The mark of the cord is not a sign of hanging, is a purely
cadaveric phenomenon, and may be produced some hours after death.
Next: Death By Strangulation
Previous: Death By Suffocation
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