Directions for the treatment of persons who have taken poison, and those in a state of apparent death; together with the means of detecting poisons and adulterations in wine; also of distinguishing real from apparent death / by M.P. Orfila. Translated from the French / by R.H. Black ... With an appendix, on suspended animation.

  • Orfila, Matthieu Joseph Bonaventure, 1787-1853
Date:
1818
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Directions for the treatment of persons who have taken poison, and those in a state of apparent death; together with the means of detecting poisons and adulterations in wine; also of distinguishing real from apparent death / by M.P. Orfila. Translated from the French / by R.H. Black ... With an appendix, on suspended animation. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    916 HANGING. “In hanging, the external veins of the neck are compressed by the cord, and the return of the blood from the head thereby impeded, from the moment that suspension takes place; but as the heart continues to act for a few seconds .after the windpipe is closed, the blood which is sent to the head, during this interval, is neces- sarily accumulated there. Hence it is, that in hanged persons, the face is greatly swoln, and of a dark red or purple colour; the eyes are com- monly suffused with blood, enlarged and promi- nent. On dissection, the blood vessels are con- siderably distended ; but, in general, no further marks of disease appear within the skull. The lungs are generally found quite collapsed, and free from frothy matter. The heart and large vessels adjoining it, exhibit the same appear- ances as in the bodies of drowned persons. From the great accumulation of blood in the vessels of the head, many have been of opinion, that hanging chiefly kills by inducing apoplexy ; but the following experiment made at Edin- burgh several years ago, by an eminent medical professor there, clearly proves, that in hanging, as well as drowning, the exclusion of air from the lungs is the immediate cause of death. A dog was suspended by the neck by a cord, an