=Post-mortem Appearances.=--The _external appearances_ are more or less those described under “Death from suffocation.” In the greater number of cases the face bears a quiet, placid expression, no turgidity or lividity being noticeable. The eyes are usually half open, but not protruded, and the condition of the pupils variable. The tongue may be protruded, but just as often not. The face may be pale or livid, and a bluish colour present on the free border of the lips. Cyanosis and swelling of the face are only present when the death agony has been long; they soon disappear. Ecchymosis of the conjunctiva, and on the outer surfaces of the lids may be present. The escape of urine, fæces, and semen may take place, but are not characteristic, and are extremely rare. Casper states that in not one of the many cases he had examined of persons hanged has he ever “found an erection of the male organ,” and he also asserts that the emission of semen is extremely rare. Seminal emissions take place more frequently in persons who have been shot, and also in those who have been poisoned by irrespirable gases or by hydrocyanic acid. As a test of strangulation, it is therefore worthless. Tardieu, however, only noticed the escape of urine and fæces in two out of forty-one cases; it is by no means a test of hanging, as it may occur after death if the body is shaken in a cart, or roughly used when first found. A fat person dying of apoplexy may have a mark round the neck as if strangled. Injury to the spinal cord due to fracture or dislocation of the cervical vertebræ is rare in suicidal hanging. Fracture of the spinal ligaments and of the hyoid bone is also rare. Rupture of the internal and middle coats of the carotid arteries sometimes occurs. But it appears that considerable damage is done to the soft parts of the neck by the present judicial mode of hanging with the “long drop.” Dr. Dyer has recorded (_New York Medical Journal_, vol. iii., 1866) some experiments he made on the eyes of a man and some dogs killed by hanging. He found certain transverse fissures across the lens, which he is inclined to think are characteristic of this mode of death. Dr. R. F. Hutchinson states that an invariable sign of death from hanging is _the flow of saliva out of the mouth, down the chin, and straight down the chest_. The appearance is unmistakable and invariable, and _could not occur in a body hung up after death_, the secretion of saliva being a living act (Chevers). Death from hanging may take place although the toes or other parts of the body rest on the ground. Death is complete in four or five minutes.