Expert: John Locke - 5/31/2008

Question
Hi.. My question regards instant death with decapitation. Does'nt the brain still have enough O2to survive for a few seconds and will the victim feel anything in that short span? thank you

Answer
Thanks for using AllExperts, Donna. There is little consensus on the second part of your question, which has been addressed to some degree since the invention of the guillotine. It's very likely that a person who is decapitated retains oxygen in their brain tissue for up to 10 seconds--meaning that death is not actually instantaneous--but it is not at all certain whether a decapitated person remains conscious during that period. Consider an analogous (though not identical) case: when a person is placed in a choke hold that prevents any blood from reaching their brain, unconsciousness follows with 5-10 seconds. It is not immediate, and it is extremely painful during that period. Striking someone on the back of the neck can be enough to knock that person unconscious, however, meaning that a decapitated head could potentially remain alive but unaware.

Most of the evidence on this question comes to us from the French Revolution, which saw the use of the guillotine extensively, to the point where physicians tried to carry out experiments on decapitated victims and arguments over survival after decapitation were quite common. Various sources provide accounts of rival criminals biting each other after guillotining when both heads dropped into the same basket. Blinking experiments seemed to suggest that individuals could survive aware for 10-13 seconds. Most famously, the decapitated head of Charlotte Corday was supposed to have blushed after being slapped by her executioner. As I said, there is little consensus, and some of the evidence offered is of dubious reliability.

A more complete discussion of this issue can be found in Mary Roach's book "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers." You find it to be of interest that a Soviet physician carried out experiments on decapitated dogs, showing that it was possible for a dog's head to be reanimated and kept alive for some time. This tends to belie the idea that decapitation causes "instant death," which ironically was the reason for the adoption of the guillotine in the first place.

There are some contemporary discussions by physicians and observers at the website below:
http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/history/landru/guillotine_7.html