Slightly gruesome question

[McCoy]

Crucifixtion in a sideways position. Now that's gotta hurt. Imagine that one hand that's pointed skyward having the full weight of the whole body. Ouch.

How about a beheading by paper cut?

 

[Holdfast]

Human beings are designed to be right way up. Upside down causes intracranial pressure to rise and eventually you'd black out.

How long between blacking out and death?

Good question.

This is guesstimation now, but I doubt very long... a few hours or so I'd hazard. Cerebral oedema would soon kick in and lead to neurological damage and eventual death.

 

[Tim]

Human beings are designed to be right way up. Upside down causes intracranial pressure to rise and eventually you'd black out.

How long between blacking out and death?

Good question.

This is guesstimation now, but I doubt very long... a few hours or so I'd hazard. Cerebral oedema would soon kick in and lead to neurological damage and eventual death.

That was sort of what I was thinking as well. My guess is that the increased ICP would pinch off the brainstem next and make it curtain call.

 

[Richard]

By the time one passes out, would respiration have not become sufficiently laboured that continuing it requires conscious control (versus the ordinary ANS respiratory drive)? If that is the case - and I don't pretend to know anything about this - might the death not occur in the order of minutes?

 

[Miss Chicken]

I gather there is no real agreement on what causes death when when is crucified. Most likely it is a combination of things.

This page gives some details

Among the points made are

Lots of ways have been suggested for how this grisly process might kill you: exhaustion, exposure, heart failure, blood clot, pulmonary embolism, acidosis (the body's pH going badly out of whack), hypovolemic shock (organ failure resulting from drop in blood volume, due either to dehydration or bleeding), arrhythmia, hemothorax or hemopneumothorax (accumulation of blood and air around the lungs) leading to lung collapse. Chances are the cause of death varied depending on circumstances.

and

The more interesting question is how crucifixion could kill somebody quickly — say, in three or six hours, as it's said to have done in Jesus's case. The best-known explanation is the asphyxia theory, popularized by the French physician Pierre Barbet in the 1950s. It goes like this: Tension in the breathing muscles prevents the victim from exhaling efficiently while hanging. He must continually push himself up to breathe. That's impossible if someone's broken your legs, which is what the soldiers supposedly did to the thieves crucified with Jesus to hasten their demise.

and

The asphyxia theory has its critics. In the 1980s American pathologist Frederick Zugibe tested volunteers with their arms at more realistic angles of 60 to 70 degrees from the vertical. With less tension in the trunk, they breathed well even without pushing up. Zugibe thought the breaking of the victim's legs was the coup de grace, intended to cause death by "cardiac and respiratory arrest due to hypovolemic and traumatic shock."

 

[Tim]

By the time one passes out, would respiration have not become sufficiently laboured that continuing it requires conscious control (versus the ordinary ANS respiratory drive)? If that is the case - and I don't pretend to know anything about this - might the death not occur in the order of minutes?

No, I don't think there's an Ondine's curse effect going on here. As long as the respiratory neuron pools are intact, one will continue to breathe even if unconscious. The question here is what the mechanism of losing consciousness is with vastly increased ICP. Is it due to compression of the brainstem (in which case death would be quick) or just general compression of the cortex (which is what I would guess)?

 

[Alpha Romeo]

I think that there a muscles in the legs that help pump blood back up so that it doesn't pool in the feet. However there would be no similar muscles in the brain etc so wouldn't blood pool in the brain and couldn't this cause a stroke?

There are no muscles that I know if other than the heart that pump blood.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I am talking about the soleus muscles which according to Wikipedia

The action of the calf muscles, including the soleus, is plantarflexion of the foot (that is, they increase the angle between the foot and the leg).
They are powerful muscles and are vital in walking, running, and dancing.
The soleus specifically plays an important role in standing; if not for its constant pull, the body would fall forward.
Also, in upright posture, it is responsible for pumping venous blood back into the heart from the periphery, and is often called the peripheral heart or the sural (tricipital) pump

SOURCE

 

[Holdfast]

By the time one passes out, would respiration have not become sufficiently laboured that continuing it requires conscious control (versus the ordinary ANS respiratory drive)? If that is the case - and I don't pretend to know anything about this - might the death not occur in the order of minutes?

No, I don't think there's an Ondine's curse effect going on here. As long as the respiratory neuron pools are intact, one will continue to breathe even if unconscious. The question here is what the mechanism of losing consciousness is with vastly increased ICP. Is it due to compression of the brainstem (in which case death would be quick) or just general compression of the cortex (which is what I would guess)?

I agree with Tim. Certainly Ondine's curse won't apply. And being upside down won't be the kind of posture requiring accessory muscles to be used (so that when exhaustion kicked in you'd die of respiratory failure). As for whether you'd suffer brainstem coning - sure, you might. The foramen magnum is obvious place for that extra pressure to be released, anyway. Impossible to know whether being upside affects that, I think. At least, without experimentation...

I am talking about the soleus muscles which according to Wikipedia

The action of the calf muscles, including the soleus, is plantarflexion of the foot (that is, they increase the angle between the foot and the leg).
They are powerful muscles and are vital in walking, running, and dancing.
The soleus specifically plays an important role in standing; if not for its constant pull, the body would fall forward.
Also, in upright posture, it is responsible for pumping venous blood back into the heart from the periphery, and is often called the peripheral heart or the sural (tricipital) pump

SOURCE

Appallingly ambiguous phrasing in that wiki article (assuming your quote is accurate, I didn't click your link to check). Upright posture alone will not do anything. You need to actively rhythmically contract soleus (and other calf muscles) to get any pumping effect. Walking, running, etc will do it. Just standing up stock still won't achieve a pumping effect. The static venous compression of standing in the absence of motion will marginally increase total peripheral resistance I guess, which will have a moderate effect in maintaining pressure. But in terms of the differences between upside down & vertical posture on crucifixion death times, I don't think that soleus activity would be a limiting factor in any way.

 

[Hunter X]

My son and I were talking about cruxification and I mentioned that St Peter was cruxified upside down (because he didn't believe he was worthy of dying the same way as Jesus).

Forgot to say before, Jesus didn't die from being crucified (asphyxiate), he died from the spear to his side.

/nitpick

I'm not sure which source that's from, but I believe the Biblical accounts say that they only stabbed him with the spear in order to make sure that he was dead; meaning, he was already dead when they did so.

Oh, and occasionally, along with the hands and feet, they would also nail a man's penis to the cross. Just to add to the fun facts of Roman execution.

 

[TGTheodore]

Crucifixion?

Yes.

Good. Line on the left, one cross per person. Next? Crucifixion?

No. They said I hadn't done anything wrong and I could go live on an island somewhere.

Really? Well, off you go.

No, no. It's crucifixion, really.

Oh, well .... good one. So ...

I know. Line on the left, one cross per person.

--Ted