Clément Renaud, Redpath Margaret, Sauvageau Anny
Laboratoire de sciences judiciaires et de médecine légale, Edifice Wilfrid-Derome, Montreal, QC, Canada.
J Forensic Sci. 2010 Sep;55(5):1268-71. doi: 10.1111/j.1556-4029.2010.01435.x.
In cases of hanging, the exact mechanism leading to death has yet to be elucidated. Most of our contemporary knowledge is still based on writings from the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. This article reviews the historic experiments that shaped our current theories. Medico-legal textbooks written in English and French from 1870 to 1930 were reviewed. Various animals, such as rabbits, mice, and dogs, have been used to develop animal models of hanging. Limited human studies on cadavers and judicial hangings have provided some additional insight into the pathophysiology of death by hanging. The main pathophysiological theories described were respiratory asphyxia, interruption to cerebral blood flow because of occlusion of vessels in the neck, and cardiac inhibition secondary to nerve stimulation. The relative contributions of each of these theories to death in cases of hanging is still debated today.
在绞刑案件中，导致死亡的确切机制尚未阐明。我们当代的大部分知识仍基于19世纪末和20世纪初的著作。本文回顾了塑造我们当前理论的历史实验。对1870年至1930年用英文和法文撰写的法医学教科书进行了综述。各种动物，如兔子、小鼠和狗，已被用于建立绞刑的动物模型。对尸体和司法绞刑进行的有限人体研究为绞刑死亡的病理生理学提供了一些额外的见解。所描述的主要病理生理理论是呼吸性窒息、由于颈部血管阻塞导致脑血流中断以及神经刺激继发的心脏抑制。如今，这些理论中每一种对绞刑案件中死亡的相对作用仍存在争议。
