OBSERVATIONS REGARDING THE INFLICTION OF THE 

 DEATH PENALTY BY ELECTRICITY. 



By EDW. ANTHONY SPITZKA, M.D. 

 (Read April sj, igo8.) 



A great variety of methods of inflicting the death penalty has 

 been devised by the inventive mind of man. The earher forms are 

 chiefly characterized by cruelty, by an intense and passionate desire 

 to wreak vengeance and inflict pain upon the condemned and to 

 instill terror, into the minds of onlookers. I will not review the 

 ancient methods in detail. There is the burning at the stake by the 

 Romans, Jews, ancient Britons, Chinese and by the Spanish Inqui- 

 sition ; beating with clubs in Greece and many African countries ; 

 beheading by axe and block, the sword and the guillotine ; blozving 

 from a cannon, either by lashing the condemned to the muzzle or 

 by thrusting him into it as a part of the charge ; boiling in water, 

 oil, melted sulphur, melted lead ; breaking on the wheel; burial alive; 

 crucifixion, a lingering method in which death was sometimes has- 

 tened by the thrust of a spear or a blow with a club ; crucifrangium, 

 inflicted on Roman slaves and Christian martyrs by laying the legs 

 of the condemned upon an anvil and fracturing the bones with a 

 heavy hammer ; decimation, used upon mutinous regiments by shoot- 

 ing every tenth man ; dichotomy or bisecting the body with a saw ; 

 dismemberment ; drawing and quartering; drowtiing; exposure to 

 wild beasts; flaying alive; flogging; knouting; garroting; impale- 

 ment; the "Iron Maiden" ; " peine forte et dure" ; poisoning; pound- 

 ing in a mortar; precipitation from a great height ; the rack; running 

 the gauntlet; shooting; stabbing; stoning; strangling; suffocating — 

 in short, men have exercised their utmost ingenuity in devising means 

 for inflicting cruel torture and horrible mutilation upon their victims. 



As is well known, more than two hundred offenses were punish- 

 able with death in England not so very long ago. In modern times 

 the penalty is now universally limited to murder, treason, piracy and 



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