480._—Execution of Magee. Man, age 28; weight 130 pounds. Drop seven
to eight feet. No struggle nor convulsion. Urine discharged at once.
Seven minutes after drop fell, heart-beat one hundred; nine minutes,
ninety-eight; twelve minutes, sixty and fainter; fourteen minutes,
not audible; twenty-five minutes, body lowered. Face purple; pupils
dilated; eyes and tongue did not protrude. Mark of cord just above
thyroid cartilage, a deep oblique furrow except a small space under
left ear; knot over mastoid process. Forty minutes, cord and strap
removed; body, especially face, became paler. Necroscopy a little over
an hour after drop fell. Body pale; skin mottled; small ecchymosis
just above line of cord right side. Right sterno-mastoid muscle torn.
Hyoid bone fractured; spine not injured. No seminal discharge. Ninety
minutes, pulsation in right subclavian vein; heart-beat, eighty per
minute; thorax opened, heart exposed; right auricle showed full and
regular contractions and dilatations. The spinal cord was then divided.
One hundred and twenty minutes, heart-beats forty per minute. These
pulsations of right auricle continued at intervals for three and a half
hours longer; readily excited by point of scalpel. Heart normal; left
ventricle contracted; right ventricle not so; no coagulation. Brain
normal; lungs collapsed; liver and spleen congested; mucous membrane
of small intestine pinkish; other organs normal. In the discussion,
Dr. Gay thought the absence of cerebral congestion was due to the
circulation continuing in the left carotid.