The ideal lesion produced by judicial hanging / by Frederic Wood-Jones.
- Frederic Wood Jones
- Date:
- 1913
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The ideal lesion produced by judicial hanging / by Frederic Wood-Jones. 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.
3/4
![Reprinted from The Lancet, January 18, 1913. JUDICIAL HANGI^JG. To the Editor of The Lancet. Sir,—I was much interested in Dr. F. Wood-Jones’s paper on the above subject in The Lancet of Jan. 4th, as he had kindly shown me the specimens in the College of Surgeons Museum not long ago. In 1886 I attended several judicial executions by Home Office authority, on the recommendation of Lord Aberdare’s Capital Sentences Committee, appointed by the then Home Secretary, Sir Kichard Assheton (now Lord) Cross, before which I gave evidence and explained a chin-trough I had invented, with the object of keeping the knot or “eye” of the rope under the point of the chin, which several experienced medical witnesses considered to be the most deadly position, dislocation or fracture having been found by them whenever the knot chanced to be under the chin. I was under the impression that this submental knot had been adopted, and the subaural long discarded ; so was much surprised on finding the latter still “ in full swing. ” I had felt instinctively that by delivering (by means of my trough) the upward and backward blow caused by the sudden check to the fall of the body on the point of the chin, the hinged head would be so rapidly and violently thrown back, at the exact second that the posterior segment of the noose struck forward the top of the neck, that the hinge must give way and dislocation take place, probably between the atlas and axis with (as I thought) fracture of the odontoid process of the latter, rupture of the cord, and instantaneous death. I also thought that this action would place the joint in one of those abnormal positions considered necessary for almost any dislocation in the body. I trusted to leverage on the chin to jerk the head back, but it was advanced against me that a man can voluntarily put his head back to within 10° of the angle the trough could force it, utterly ignoring the difference between a sudden terrific blow and a cautious movement of our own sweet will. I also coupled with my arte non vi treatment the certain possibility of reducing all drops to three or four feet. The opposition to my chin leverage was most pronounced on the part of Dr. James Barr, medical officer to the county prison of Lancashire at Kirkdale, now Sir James Barr, the distinguished President of the British Medical Association. His belief was in the “ energy of the fall as the chief factor ” in successful executions, and he looked upon the position of the knot as “of secondary importance,” but then he did not think it “ a very material point whether the scaffold should be level with the ground or should have steps ”—for the wretched culprit to climb. Of my own humble effort the chairman. Lord Aberdare, was good enough to say: “As far as your object goes it quite falls in with what we wished—namely, to keep the knot under the chin ” ; and, later on, dealing with the risk of decapitation, “that arises from the fact that the rope is not properly adjusted under the chin ; but if you could be sure of the knot remaining here and so jerking the head back you would then be sure of producing fracture,” to which Dr. Samuel Haughton added, “we can produce fractures now by moderate drops, by securing the head being thrown back; this [my trough] is a step in the right direction.” However, the committee recommended a scale of drops according to weight, chiefly, I believe, on Dr. Barr’s sugges- tions, calculated to deliver a blow on the neck in all cases](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2246363x_0005.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
