Judicial hanging.

  • Marshall, John James de Zouche.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Judicial hanging. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Reprinted from Tub Lancet, March 1, 1913. //%. To the Editor of The JUDICIAL HANGn_._ , C!E^\ Sir,—Your having done me the honour of^^lyMi^ mv letter on the above subject in The Lancet makes it, I feel, incumbent on me to enter more fullip and especially into the evidence brought before Lord Aberdare’s Capital Sentences Committee 27 years ago, and the extraordinary recommendations of that committee. The admission of the subject of “judicial hanging ” to the pages of The Lancet is proof of its suitability for discussion by the medical profession, from whose ranks alone can arbitrators be provided. As Dr. F. Wood-Jones points out in his article published by you on Jan. 4th, “For a long while the facts here mentioned ” (proving the efiBcacy of the submental knot) “have been known in an indefinite way. The submental knot was strongly advocated to, and apparently approved by, the Committee on Capital Sentences in 1886, but it was not made a recommendation in its resolutions.” That committee seems to have been alone influenced by the evidence of Dr. (now Sir) James Barr, then Kirkdale prison medical officer, who advocated the long drop with the subaural knot, relying alone on “the energy of the fall as the chief factor”—i.e., on clumsy, uncertain, brute force. The adoption of this system might have been justifled if it had been shown that the lesions produced in a number of executions were similar, but Dr. Barr’s own evidence (Report, paras. 759, 760, and 761, p. 28) on his 15 post-mortem examinations at Kirkdale says ‘ ‘ the injuries vary very much, dislocations having been found ” Table of 15 Executions at Kirhdale Prison^ 1883-1886. No. Weight. Drop energy. Result. st. lb. lb. ft. in. ft. lb. 1 11 4 158 7 0 1106 Asphyxia. 2 9 8 134 7 5i 1001 3 10 2 142 7 8 1082 4 11 3 157 7 lU 1246 Dislocation. 5 11 4 158 8 0 1264 6 10 4 144 9 2 1320 7 8 6 118 9 6 1121 8 11 1 155 8 U 1336 9 9 4 130 9 3 1202 10 10 2 142 9 3 1313 11 10 4 144 9 6 1368 12 8 6 118 10 9 1268 13 9 4 130 11 Oi 1438 14 9 5 131 10 1402 15 9 4 130 8 9 1139 more frequently between the second and third vertebrae, and as low down as between the fifth and sixth, while he found “fractures of the transverse processes of the second, third, fourth, and fifth, of the odontoid process, of the body of the axis and of the arch.” What a contrast to the uniformity of lesion produced by the submental knot in Captain C. F. Fraser’s cases, quoted in Dr. Wood-Jones’s paper. But less illuminating still are the figures relating to the allotment of the Kirkdale drops, for it will be noticed in the subjoined list of executions there (Report, paras. 607-620, p. 23) that there are three culprits