Truth is Stranger than Fiction

[Graeme]

From ‘Old Wives Tales-Fact or Fiction?’ by Thomas J. Craughwell. (The discussion surrounds the ‘myth’ that, a severed head stays alive for several minutes after it’s separated from the body).

Mechanical head-chopping devices have been around at least since 1307, when a beheading machine was set up near the town of Meron, Ireland, to execute a scalawag named Mucod Ballagh. But the Cuisinart of head removers was the guillotine, named after Doctor Antoine Louis Guillotine, who designed the sleek, efficient gadget that decapitated King Louis XVI, Queen Marie Antoinette, and thousands of less distinguished victims during the French Revolution’s reign of terror.

Although the guillotine is almost universally regarded with horror these days, Dr Guillotine intended it as a swift, tidy, and humane form of execution. He and the leaders of the Revolution were determined to have a mode of capital punishment in keeping with the principles of the Age of Enlightenment. Compared to the unspeakable agonies of being burned at the stake, or having one’s bones smashed while being bound to a wheel, the guillotine was a genuinely merciful step forward. Dr Guillotine himself described his device as “philanthropic.”

Soon after the Guillotine was in regular operation, executioners and others on the scaffold began to notice that the severed heads often seemed to still be “alive.” The eyes opened or twitched. The lips trembled, or the mouth opened as if the victim were trying to speak.

The most famous case is that of Charlotte Corday, the young woman who stabbed to death the French revolutionary Murat while he soaked in his bath . After she was guillotined, the executioner lifted her head out of the basket and displayed it to the crowd as he slapped its face. Corday’s cheeks reddened and her face took on an angry expression. The old wives said that the guillotine worked so swiftly that for several minutes after the head was separated from the body it remained alive and conscious. The idea was terribly unsettling, to say the least.

This notion hung on so long that in 1905 a French physician named Beaurieux decided to settle the matter by studying the head of a criminal named Languille who scheduled to be guillotined at 5:30 am 28 June 1905.

After the blade of the guillotine fell, Dr Beaurieux observed, “The eyelids and lips of the guillotined man worked in irregularly rhythmic contractions for about five or six seconds.” Beaurieux waited a few seconds more until he saw the muscles of the face relax and the eyelids half close.
Then he says. “I called in a strong, sharp voice, 'Languille!' I saw the eyelids slowly lift up, without any spasmodic contractions-I insist advisedly on this peculiarity-but with an even movement, quite distinct and normal, such as happens in everyday life, with people awakened or torn from their thoughts…Languille’s eyes very definitely fixed themselves on mine and the pupils focussed themselves. I was not , then, dealing with the sort of vague dull look without any expression, that can be observed any day in dying people to whom one speaks: I was dealing with undeniably living eyes which were looking at me.”

After several seconds, the eyelids closed again. Once again the doctor called out the “dead” mans name. “Once more, without any spasm, slowly, the eyelids lifted and undeniably living eyes fixed themselves on mine with perhaps even more penetration than the first time.” The eyelids closed again, and when Beaurieux called Languille’s name for the third time there was no reaction. He lifted the lids with his fingers and recognised that the eyes had taken on “the glazed look which they have in death”.

According to Dr Beaurieux, the whole scene took about 25 to 30 seconds.

Languille may have remained conscious for a few seconds after being beheaded. However, his remaining conscious for 25 to 30 seconds seems unlikely. When the head is severed from, the body, both parts quickly lose enormous amounts of blood. Blood loss leads-in rapid succession-to a massive drop in blood pressure, oxygen deprivation (cerebral hypoxia) unconsciousness, and brain death.

[Konigstiger205]

That's creepy....

[DOUGRD]

Originally Posted by Matt308

Modern aircraft lavatories have waste tanks that are pumped while at the gate. However, the plumbing between the aircraft skin and the tank valve are known to contain waste that freezes and falls away at altitude.

You're pretty close there Matt. All the modern airliners (The ones I'm familiar with anyway) have a Dump valve in each lav tank. When the rampers go to empty the shitters they attach the Lav Truck hose to the aircraft, open the Aircraft Dump Valve ,usually a flapper or butterfly valve, and then pull the "T" handle that actuates the lav dump valve and the waste transfers from the lav tank thru the dump tube, thru the butterfly valve and out into the Lav truck. Then the lav tank is refilled with 5 gals of "Blue Juice" By the way folks, this "Blue Juice" is NOT a disinfectant and it does get recirculated in the tank. So anyway, what happens sometimes is that after the lavs are serviced the Aircraft Dump Valve doesn't close completely and that leaking "Blue Juice" is what forms the "Blue Ice" that usually causes such mysterious events. One such event I heard of while I worked for Northwest Airlines was back on the old B727. The lav dump valve leaked and the resulting "blue Ice" bomb broke loose and was ingested by #1 Eng. The vibration was so intense that the engine broke loose from its mounts and departed the aircraft.

[jkworld]

I am an imbecile

[jkworld]

I pee my pants

[jkworld]

I was dropped on my head as a young child

[Bernhart]

?

[comiso90]

Originally Posted by jkworld

i till you where i live 27 mt ninderry ct and F**K YOU BICTHES AND SUCK MY FAT COC NOW BUTF*****G COC HEAD

Hillary, is that you?

[Matt308]

Where's a mod when you need 'em. What a noob. Say hello to your mommy for me.

[mkloby]

Hehe

[Downwind.Maddl-Land]

to the tune of the Eton Boating Song (?):

"Gentlemen will please refrain
from urinating while the train
is standing in the station, if you please,

Railway workers underneath
are getting it in the eyes and teeth......"

and so on....!

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Banned

Damn I have not been online for a few days.

[Bernhart]

If your gonna rant at least spell the words right.

[ccheese]

Originally Posted by Bernhart

If your gonna rant at least spell the words right.

The idiot probably doesn't know how....

Charles

[Aggie08]

Haha, I didn't see the original dialogue, just what FlyboyJ replaced it with. It's funnier that way, instead of seeming painfully idiotic he just seems confused and doesn't care who knows it.