Everyday Dying

Impalement can refer to either piercing through an individual with a sufficiently sharp stake or pole or hanging them off it, either by nailing or tying them to it. In this post I will be referring to the type of impalement, used as capital punishment, which involves execution by means of piercing through the central body mass of the guilty individual. Impalement can be carried out either vertically (through you know where, which would vary depending on the individual's gender) or traversally (through the chest or torso) in order to cause a slow and painful death. This would be typically carried out as a consequence of crimes against the state in various parts of the world. The time taken from being initially "skewered" to death would typically take from a few minutes to 3 days, depending on the exact method. The most notorious individual throughout history known to have carried out the punishment was Vlad the Impaler, aka Dracula, the Wallachian prince who lived in t...

Immolation refers to deliberate causing of death by means of burning. Sometimes self-immolation is carried out as a means of sacrifice, although the method was predominantly used for carrying out executions since the early human history. Usually the prisoner would be bound to a large wooden stake and fire would be lit up underneath them. If the fire was large, the condemned would often die by Carbon Monoxide poisoning, before being burnt alive. However, if the flame was small, the body would catch fire while the prisoner remained conscious and their flesh would burn for a period of time, until death occurred due to loss of blood, body fluids, thermal decomposition of vital body parts or heatstroke. Image of an execution by burning, from page 528 of "L'Histoire d'Angleterre depuis les temps les plus reculés ... racontée à mes petits-enfants ... recueillie par Madame de Witt. ... Ouvrage illustré, etc", property of the British Library.  During the process, t...

Execution via electric chair is believed to be a humane and painless method. However, it does not look as such from an onlooker's perspective, as the prisoner often appears to be thrashing, their eyeballs often melt and/or pop out of their skull, involuntary bowel movement occurs, and the smell of burning skin is prevalent. Autopsies of convicts executed in this way often showed that the brain had literally been cooked inside the skull. Thus, the question arises, how is that a humane and painless execution? Death by electrocution is caused by high voltage electricity resulting in rapid and irregular contractions of the heart, thus causing cardiac arrest. For the execution in an electric chair, the prisoner's hair is removed from one of their legs and their head in order to connect electrodes to the skin.  They are strapped to the chair. Then, an initial high voltage (usually around 2000 V) alternating current is applied for about 30 seconds, which makes the convict lose con...

Decapitation for the purpose of execution goes back a long way in history. It was a method used in the Greek and Roman empires. The method was popular in Britain up to 1747. Beheadings were typically carried out using swords and axes, until the guillotine was invented in 1792 in France. Decapitation by means of a sword usually involved the prisoner being made to kneel down as low as they could, and a long sword (about 0.9 -1.2 m long) weighing about 2 kg would be used to sever the head. Using an axe would usually require implementing a wooden block, often cut at an angle which would allow an easier job for the executioner, where the prisoner would place their neck. Ideally, the head would be severed off with a single swing of the axe. However, in some cases, the angle of the axe to the neck would make it difficult to sever the head with a single blow, thus requiring several attempts, causing pain to the prisoner. For example, during the beheading of Mary, the Queen of Scots in 1587, ...