Does The Head Of A Guillotined / Decapitated Individual Remain Briefly Alive?

Question

Lots of anecdotal evidence of up to 30 seconds of life in a head i.e. blinking, mouthing words, opening of eyes when name shouted, grimaces of pain, horror and grief etc. Any factual evidence though?

Answer 1

Yes, but only for eleven seconds. I had seen this on the discovery channel. A french medical researcher made an arrangement with this particular Prince in 1796 before execution that if he was aware of his surroundings after being beheaded, he would blink in a complex manner to differentiate from random blinking and grimacing, in order to help the researcher with his work. He started blinking and as his head was severed continued to blink 1 time every second.

You cannot speak after this because your vocal cords are not receiving any air and are actually in the lower portion of the neck.

Answer 2

In my opinion, no. Think of the shock to the system. The reactions that you may have read about, especially during the French Revolution are suspect and any incidents of eye or mouth movement were most likely due to reflex actions while there was still blood in the decapitated head, maybe up to 10 seconds?

It would be much more interesting, regarding your question, if you, or I, could get our hands on the Nazis decapitations data, done during WWII. There were some 200,000 people who had been decapitated during that time, so many times more than in the French Revolution, and I'm sure that there were Nazi/Wehrmacht/SS/German doctors who would have given their medical opinions and even experimented after these decapitations; that is, if they could keep up with the "newer" and "more efficient" guillotine machines.

Please note that although I feel that the evidence brought about by the Nazis would be interesting, I personally feel that what they did to other human beings was inhuman, overall. You may be able to access the German doctors' records of decapitations data, etc., online. I have not really tried to find the data as of yet, myself.

Hope I've been of help to you. Good luck!

Answer 3

I guess what you're asking is, does the brain remain briefly alive? Logically, the answer should be yes.

The brain needs two things - sugar and oygen - to produce the energy to keep itself going, and it should be able to survive for a short period on the residual blood which remained in the skull (given that the heart is no longer connected to pump the blood out). Hearing and vision (which are neurologically part of brain function) would continue until energy reserves were depleted. So yes, someone could hear their name called, even if they could only respond by twitches.

Facial muscles would still have a little energy remaining from the blood perfusing them, so blinking/ winking/ lip movements would theoretically be possible (although for a more limited time than the persistence of consciousness, as mass requires more energy to move than thought, and the brain would have more resources in the first place). From an external observer's point of view, the head would probably only show signs of life for 10-15 seconds after decapitation, unless they had an EKG attached.

Given that the brain has the highest energetic demand of all body tissues (proportional to tissue weight), consciousness probably wouldn't last very long. 30 sec (as suggested), is probably the absolute limit.

However messy and unpleasant it looks from the outside, I'd imagine that decapitation is actually one of the quickest, cleanest and least painful (spinal cord is severed) methods of execution - from the victim's point of view. Far more so than poison gas, the electric chair, hanging, firing squad, lethal injection etc., methods termed "less barbaric" by those who support capital punishment (which I do not, BTW). Maybe they're just less barbaric from the observer's point of view...

But I'm not volunteering to find out, and certainly no-one's ever going to be able to compare them.

FYE, there's a great scene in the book "Use of Weapons", narrated in first person perspective, in which the protagonist is beheaded by a primitive tribe. (Fortunately for him, the society he worked for had perfected stasis fields, matter transmission and cloning, so it wasn't fatal! Isn't fiction fun?)

Answer 4

Factual evidence... yes. A french medical researcher made an arrangement with this particular Prince in 1796 before execution that if he was aware of his surroundings after being beheaded, he would blink in a complex manner to differentiate from random blinking and grimacing, in order to help the researcher with his work.
APPARENTLY the beheaded head completed the complex sequence of blinks without error. I have to say I find this hard to believe, given the tremendous pain of being decaptiated.

The head remains alive as long as there is sufficient oxygen in the brain. As the oxygen is used up, the brain dies.

Answer 5

Only anecdotal, but this is about as close as you can get, I think:

On May 17, 1536 — the day Anne Boleyn's alleged "lovers" were publicly beheaded — she was stripped of her title as queen and her daughter Elizabeth was declared illegitimate. The following day, Boleyn heard Mass for the last time, and publicly swore on the Blessed Sacrament that she was innocent. When her jailer, William Kingston, told her that she was to be given the privilege of being executed by a French sword expert, she laughed. "I heard say that the executioner was very good, and I have a little neck." Kingston was amazed at the composure she now demonstrated, writing, "She hath much joy in death."

She dressed in an elegant grey dress and styled her famous dark hair on the morning of May 19, 1536. A crowd of officials had gathered on Tower Green to watch her execution. On the scaffold, she gave a short, dignified speech. She did not admit to any guilt, but diplomatically avoided attacking the king in case he sought revenge on her surviving relatives. She then knelt down and was blindfolded with a linen handkerchief. The executioner took off her head with a quick, clean sweep of his blade. Eye-witnesses claimed that, when her head was shown to the spectators, her eyes were open and she appeared to be attempting to speak.

Answer 6

There is some evidence that there is consciousness after being beheaded. This was studied for some time during the times when the French use the guillotine for executions.

Having been through and accident which nearly killed me, I am convinced that you can feel the last seconds of life and they tend to go in slow motion. The term "instant death" is, IMHO, a fallacy.

Answer 7

initial experiments in france proved the following:
dog's blood was pumped through a decapitated head immediately follwing execution. the scientist called the criminal's name- the eyes opened, & the lips trembled. also, following multiple executions, the heads sometimes gnawed each other in the basket. from this, it was decided that heads landing top down would continue 'life' slightly longer than neck down, as some blood would be retained. brain death is 2-3 minutes anyway without oxygen. in theory awareness may be present for that period. the french experimenters believed, because of this, that at public executions, the victim could hear the cheering after the event - yuck!!
Dr Beaurieux's report, 1905
"Here, then, is what I was able to note immediately after the decapitation: the eyelids and lips of the guillotined man worked in irregularly rhythmic contractions for about five or six seconds. This phenomenon has been remarked by all those finding themselves in the same conditions as myself for observing what happens after the severing of the neck...

"I waited for several seconds. The spasmodic movements ceased. The face relaxed, the lids half closed on the eyeballs, leaving only the white of the conjunctiva visible, exactly as in the dying whom we have occasion to see every day in the exercise of our profession, or as in those just dead. It was then that I called in a strong, sharp voice: "Languille!" I saw the eyelids slowly lift up, without any spasmodic contractions – I insist advisedly on this peculiarity – but with an even movement, quite distinct and normal, such as happens in everyday life, with people awakened or torn from their thoughts.
Next Languille's eyes very definitely fixed themselves on mine and the pupils focused themselves. I was not, then, dealing with the sort of vague dull look without any expression, that can be observed any day in dying people to whom one speaks: I was dealing with undeniably living eyes which were looking at me. "After several seconds, the eyelids closed again, slowly and evenly, and the head took on the same appearance as it had had before I called out.

"It was at that point that I called out again and, once more, without any spasm, slowly, the eyelids lifted and undeniably living eyes fixed themselves on mine with perhaps even more penetration than the first time. The there was a further closing of the eyelids, but now less complete. I attempted the effect of a third call; there was no further movement – and the eyes took on the glazed look which they have in the dead.

"I have just recounted to you with rigorous exactness what I was able to observe. The whole thing had lasted twenty-five to thirty seconds

Answer 8

Maybe for a bit - but not 30 seconds. No way. I take karate and we practice choke holds. These holds restrict air AND the flow of blood through the carotid arteries. If the right hold is put on you and the blood and air is restricted - you are going out in 15 seconds. I've seen it happen. I myself have never been choked out - when we practice it on each other - we tap our partners to let them know to stop. And I know first hand from having attended many classes - that if I hadn't tapped when I had - that I would have been unconscious with in seconds.

Now if someone is beheaded - not only are they not getting any new blood and air - but air and blood they had is flowing out of the neck. They just would not be able to function.

Answer 9

I admit looking at those really gross videos on the net of a czech soldier being..... i think you get my point. I think he was gone pretty quick.
It's totally gross.

I don't think your claim is true though. Seems a bit far fetched. Although I know that a chicken's body flaps continously after being beheaded.

As for a snake, it's well known that cutting it's head off is a big mistake cos the snake can still bite you. The cleaver should go along the middle of the head, spliting it in halves of left and right.

Answer 10

What a strange question, I was told that the head, would just have time to blink its eyes once, but other than that I don't know, it is a really good question though and I shall watch it, to see what replies you get I am intrigued by it.