Things You Think About at 2:30 AM

There’s a story out of the French Revolution of a fellow whose guillotined head continued to scream for several minutes after being divorced from its body. Good story, but when you think about it, utterly impossible. Even if the executioner had botched the job so closely to the shoulders that he included the larynx with the head, the diaphragm would still be necessary to push air past the vocal cords.

I suppose it’s possible that a severed head could retain consciousness for 30 or 60 seconds. Possibly it could even work the jaw muscles, albeit silently. It’s completely possible that the eyes and ears would continue to process information until the brain became starved of oxygen. That would occur fairly rapidly. Vision is the first higher brain function to break down, so who knows?

But a screaming head? Not very likely.