A History Teacher Reacts | "How Long did a Person Stay Alive after the Guillotine?"

[Music] hey youtube welcome back to another history teacher axe video of mr. Terry to continue my search for historical knowledge found here on YouTube alright today's video we're going back to simple history this video , I because of kind of where I'm at actually and my teaching right now and that is the French Revolution and one of the things I get asked because it comes up is about the guillotine so the guillotine of course was a tool used to behead people that was famously used extensively in the French Revolution which is where I'm at in my classes right now and there's always that student or something maybe it's you that was like you know has some kind of comments that you have heard about did you know that you know after you your head gets cut off that you know your head and body can survive technically for X amount of time and it's always something that comes up and it's I know it's very morbid but kind of interesting so anyway simple history apparently did a video that says how long did a person stay alive after being guillotine now I've heard of accounts even like from the French Revolution with medical examiner's that were there on hand for like actual beheadings and studied it like the the head would keep blinking or looking around for like a few seconds or something but anyways it's good to see this and I don't know if what context is actually going to talk about it being used in the French Revolution but that's what kind of caught my eye and drew me to this is the timing of this alright but we're gonna check this out in just a second if you like this original video make sure you go down below in the description a link to it will be there make sure you like this video subscribe to simple history they're awesome they do great things and if you haven't stuff to my channel I'd love to have you around be a part of our community alright let's go and get started yeah already creepy right detected capitated heads plus you know it's been a weirdly common thing in history of when you decapitate someone you also display their head either as a trophy or probably mostly as an example to others to fall in line Oh how long did a person's head stay alive after being guillotined perfect perfect segue love a beheading as a form of execution has been around for centuries sure by 1792 during the time of the French Revolution it had become a highly efficient and quick form of execution in the shape of the now famous guillotine yeah so 1792 that's when it came around Josef guillotine I believe is his name the guy credited for it and was designed to be an humane and humane and egalitarian way of executing people in the French Revolution humane because seemingly it is painless because it is very quick and swift and I had heard about this before that one of the reasons they wanted a device to cut someone's head off more efficiently was from the fact that classical beheadings often was you know someone had an axe and cut you over as you leaned over a stump or something but I've learned that it actually is not easy to potentially behead somebody with an axe with one stroke that sometimes it can take multiple strokes which obviously is even gory er and more frightening than anything when it comes to cutting someone's head off so yeah so 1710 1792 the French Revolution started in mid 1789 so they were doing all these executions for a couple years and there I card this is the way to go king louis xvi himself signed the bill that made the guillotine the official method of execution the guillotine was a tall wooden structure first used in revolutionary France for beheading someone using a heavy slanted blade and suddenly dropped down a set of vertical grooves they slanted it to so that it cuts easier because it's just flat I guess that also it can stop the motion so it's meant to do that as well but usually chop the condemned person's head off in one clean action whereupon the severed head would unceremoniously drop into a basket below dr. Joseph Ignace guillotine who would was named after claim that the guillotine made execution as painless as possible we at least think right cuz no one has ever survived to beheading but all of us what we would think would assume that it's painless but we don't know for sure however later on the device was also known as Madame La guillotine la dom the lady that verve the widow near aswan Nationale the national razor national razor yet that's what I heard the national razor I think that's the best name of all but was the execution by a truly painless there is a famous story about the execution of Charlotte Corday by the eighteen in 1793 go during the French Revolution just after she had been beheaded a member of the crowd left forward and slapped poor Charlotte across the face to see if she was still conscious it's reported that her face then blushed at the indignity of being slapped there are either lost how do you know if it's the from the indignity of being blush one if it's just a natural reaction still if it react reacting in general is a pretty interesting thing for ease of how heads blinked after being guillotine Antoine Lavoisier was a French scientist at the height of the French Revolution in 1794 he was condemned to death during the reign of terror and supposedly agreed to blink after his head was guillotine the by the way the reign of terror was the part of the French Revolution that conducted the most guillotining I guess it's from July 1793 to July 1794 basically a calendar year where I believe the estimation is in that fairly close to a calendar year there were 40,000 executions by guillotine in that year alone and in the that's the height of what I understand of the timing of these executions during that all right so you got a scientist that got guillotine and I guess in a way is like hey I'm getting guillotine the sucks but maybe I can be of scientific use and we'll I'll be a test subject oh gosh let's see what happens we go back to that five seconds I kind of talked over that set up during the reign of terror and supposedly agreed to blink after his head was guillotine her has one last experiment for science his servants noted that Lavoie Sierre blinked up to 15 seconds after the execution the that okay if that's a conscious thing that sounds like it is if he's blinking 15 seconds is a long time go ahead and count off seriously 15 seconds that is a long time to still be conscious and aware of your surroundings that really is a long time but there are many stories like this claiming that lucid decapitation or consciousness exists momentarily after beheading and then these stories are based on real people in real events they are most likely exaggerations or anecdotes that have become embellished over time by your countless retellings however yeah cuz because you know like it may be like three seconds then of course of someone that is there as thinking oh my gosh this is five seconds and they tell somebody and then it becomes 7 seconds 10 seconds 15 seconds it seems like the something that could really be exacerbated but still it's often been wondered by scientists how long the head keeps on functioning after it's been guillotined from the body one of the chief reasons for the introduction of the guillotine was that it was deemed to be very humane but some factions in the medical community were seriously questioning this dr. samuel thomas summering theorized that in fact a decapitated head could continue to live and feel for up to a full 15 minutes after being guillotine and therefore the suffering was worse than death by hanging wait let me go back 15 minutes that you could have feeling but your brain can't process what me now and minutes after being guillotine and they could continue to live and feel for up to a full 15 minutes after being guillotine and therefore the suffering was worse than death by hanging so what did you be feeling though like a pain in your neck or just everywhere but dr. Zhang stated all a leading pioneer of modern day medicine at the time counter argued that the difference between killing a person or a butcher killing an animal by severing its head resulted in the same effect immediate death and total end-of-life others such as Pierre Jean George cabañas argued that victims did not suffer once guillotine because the nape of the neck is where death can be caused instantly in people and animals the twitches and the severed heads were in his opinion purely mechanical muscle movements without consciousness yeah I mean it could be nicer if they had lung capacity could speak and actually like say oh this doesn't hurt my head's cut off but I have no feeling of course that's not possible without connection to the lungs i I wonder if they did somehow make noise I don't know how you could I guess documented cases of animals like chickens cockroaches frogs snakes and preying mantises surviving for a long period of time after they've been decapitated for example there are many accounts and videos of rattlesnakes that have been beheaded and still have been able to bite people with their head cheese because the guillotine was used in France all the way up until 1977 there has been said that is crazy I had heard that 1970s 1977 if I remember hearing this right not only was that person execute by DT I don't know if that person had chosen that but I believe it's the last pas capital punishment that France ever did they banned it after that I think I'm not positive I thought I'd heard that the making and interestingly of such a famous part of French history was also the final execution done was also by guillotine 1977 that's not long ago but research carried out using more advanced methodology on actual guillotine human it has been widely reported that sometimes you will see some eye and mouth movements from a guillotine head but today scientists are mostly convinced that this is just involuntary reflex actions that linger on in the aftermath crowd but still doubt and conflicting reports linger about this whole issue one of the most compelling accounts of consciousness being said to still exist for a significant amount of time after being guillotine was in 1905 oddly langu was executed by the device in Orleans France dr. Gabriel borio observed that the decapitated head was still twitching and when he called out the man's name his eyes looked upwards and stared directly at the doctor okay so this this sounds a little bit more interesting about things that may not necessarily be like just reactionary that there's a tension being drawn right to to that so head off name and then looking up at it okay it was claimed that this lasted for between 25 to 30 seconds though later in 1939 the Journal of the American Medical Association thought worio was exaggerating his account of what happened as other witnesses that had been present the execution said life only seemed to last for a maximum of 10 seconds and that the man's reactions were less pronounced today scientists agree that once the victim is guillotine the separated head and the body dies from a combination of things shock blood loss loss of blood pressure and anoxia which is the total depletion of the level of oxygen within the body the separated body as such lives for about another 60 seconds until the heart finally stops beating as for the decapitated head scientists say that it can technically have enough oxygen stored for metabolism to continue for about seven seconds though parts of the body may live on for a very short time after being guillotined and now it makes sense because the blood [ __ ] I mean your brain to function I mean yeah there's reserves but other functions still have I mean Twitchell like mechanisms that when a catastrophic effect of being decapitated means that any consciousness would be extinguished almost instantly so for about two to three seconds the brain may still be functioning but any intelligence would be in a fixed unresponsive comatose state unaware of anything but there has still not been conclusively proven evidence one way or another if consciousness really remains significantly after decapitation maybe in time we'll find out what really happens in those short moments before life is extinguished how would we know I guess right Oh God he's back hello simple history fans don't forget to subscribe and click the notification bell for more history videos he's gonna come back as me hey guys check out this simple history merge up got the creepy like Renaissance Middle Ages mask the doctors where to put spices and the the beak what looks like a beak that would protect them from germs and stuff that is not by the way the off topic but what you would want to see if you're on your deathbed this is the doctor with the scariest mask ever created leaning over you trying to work on you or something else they have merged four different characters they've timed the mainspring there's t-shirts mugs stickers phone cases and much more school link in the description below very cool cool yeah definitely check all their stuff out I love that channel third they're so cool alright well anyway I just again thought this be kinda interesting to look at see if we can learn some more things a couple more stories I hadn't heard of that they they kind of came in there B I'm surprised I wonder if there are a lot more records to I mean with the French Revolution it being such a common thing to use the guillotine it seems like dad there could be a lot of accounts I know a lot I have come out of that of potential awareness or some kind of reactions by these severed heads um earlier said that the guillotine was seen as egalitarian what I kind of meant by that was and what was supposed to be I guess known by that was yes it was it supposed to be a humane thing it was a seemingly painless efficient killing method but they would use the guillotine egalitarian in the fact that they would use the guillotine for any type of people hi class low class it was just if you were an enemy of the revolution you got the same punishment as everyone else and I don't know what if that supposed to give moral points or something for that sort of thing that it was all similar in the way his execution but I mean I'll take the dying out of execution for that as well but all right well anyway maybe if I thought that was interesting they're kind of a little bit morbid but morbid curiosity is a natural trait I guess right anyway all right awesome yeah if you liked the video and you definitely give it a like and then sub if you haven't subbed - a simple history they're awesome they make great stuff and awesome all right okay with that just on the way out thanks to everyone that's been supporting the channel through things like patreon thank you for for doing that that gets you at least incident or access to voting polls that get featured on this channel really support everybody that's been supporting on patreon thanks to channel members people who have been joining the channel as well with those donations that have gone that way to help keeping this channel live and supporting history education that way it's very important and I really appreciate that but thank you for some for most just for being here for watching the video and being just a supporter again of history and history education alright we'll go ahead and end here we'll see you guys next time bye [Music] [Music]

Channel: Mr. Terry History

Views: 40,142

Keywords: react, history

Id: 3BLhUwMzJqQ

Length: 16min 52sec (1012 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 29 2020