Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, and Mary, Queen of Scots required three strikes at their respective executions. The same could be said for the execution of Johann Friedrich Struensee, favorite of the Danish queen Caroline Matilda of Great Britain. Margaret Pole, 8th Countess of Salisbury, is said to have required up to 10 strokes before decapitation was achieved. This particular story may, however, be apocryphal (since highly divergent accounts exist). Historian and philosopher David Hume, for example, relates the following about her death:She refused to lay her head on the block, or submit to a sentence where she had received no trial. She told the executioner, that if he would have her head, he must win it the best way he could: and thus, shaking her venerable grey locks, she ran about the scaffold; and the executioner followed her with his axe, aiming many fruitless blows at her neck before he was able to give the fatal stroke. To ensure that the blow would be fatal, executioners swords usually were blade-heavy two-handed swords. Likewise, if an axe was used, it almost invariably was wielded with both hands. In England a bearded axe was used for beheading, with the blades edge extending downwards from the tip of the shaft.Finlands official beheading axe resides today at the Museum of Crime in Vantaa. It is a broad-bladed two-handed axe. It was last used when murderer Tahvo Putkonen was executed in 1825, the last execution in peacetime in Finland.
A degloving injury is a type of avulsion in which an extensive section of skin is completely torn off the underlying tissue, severing its blood supply. It is named by analogy to the process of removing a glove. Effects
Typically, degloving injuries affect the extremities and limbs; in these cases, they are frequently associated with underlying fractures. Any injury which would induce degloving of the head or torso is likely to be lethal. However, controlled facial degloving is often featured in plastic surgery. Degloving injuries invariably require major surgical interventions. Treatment options include replantation or revascularization of the degloved skins, or when these are not possible, skin grafts or skin flaps. While the preservation of the extremities and limbs is normally preferred, in some cases amputations may be advised or required. Post-operative physiotherapy is of particular importance for degloving injuries involving the hand. Other animals
Many small mammals are able to induce degloving of their tails to escape capture; this is comparable to tail autotomy in reptiles. References
External links
Report on degloving injuries in children