3. _Fracture of the Spine, and Dislocation of the Neck._ The death of a hanged person may occasionally take place by the luxation of the cervical vertebræ, and the consequent injury of the spinal marrow; this effect will be more likely to happen in heavy persons, and where the culprit suffers on a drop that precipitates him from a considerable height. It is said that _Louis_ discovered that of the two executioners in Paris and Lyons, one dispatched the criminal condemned to be hanged by luxating the head on the neck, whilst those who perished by the hands of the other were completely strangled. An animal, when first suspended, is observed to make repeated but ineffectual attempts to inspire; violent convulsions of the whole body then ensue, but which are not to be considered as the indications of suffering, for they arise in consequence of the dark coloured blood having reached the brain and spinal marrow; and the animal at this period is necessarily insensible; hanging does not occasion a painful death.[44] The lips, nose, and all those parts in which the hue of the blood can be observed, exhibit a dark colour; the countenance is distorted, the eyes protruded, and frequently suffused with blood, the tongue is also forced out of the mouth, and sometimes wounded, although it has been observed that this phenomenon will entirely depend upon the position of the rope, for that when it presses above the thyroid gland the tongue will be pushed back, in consequence of a compression upon the _os hyoides_, whereas if the pressure be applied under the _cricoid_ cartilage it will have the effect of thrusting out the tongue. Blood is sometimes discharged from the ears. It is not unusual for the sufferer to void his urine, fæces, and even semen, in _articulo mortis_. The fingers are usually bent, the nails blue, and the hands nearly closed; and the whole physiognomy exhibits a highly characteristic appearance. “But see, his face is black and full of blood, His eye-balls further out than when he lived, Staring full ghastly, like a strangled man, His hair uprear’d, his nostrils stretch’d with struggling, His hands abroad display’d, as one that grasp’d And tugg’d for life, and was by strength subdu’d.” _Henry_ VI, _Part_ ii, _Act_ iii, _s._ 2.