Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-08-26
A SUBSTITUTE FOR HANGING.
Oxide Suggested a. Better
Than Electricity.

From the Boston Transcript
DR.. Samuel W. Abbott, secretary Of the Mas-
sachusetts state board of health, contributes to
the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal an In
teresting paper relative to substituting FOR
hanging some better and more humane method
of INJECTING the death penalty. In the present
state Of scientific knowledge of the nature and
effects upon the human system Of electricity
DR.. Abbott is not prepared to accept IL a. the
best substitute at hand, saying Of experiments
which have been made, lit would appear from
the results that there are serious hindrances to
the adoption of this subtle agent" without
considering the main question a. TO whether
some other method should take the place Of
hanging DR.. Abbott says that, II change 10
desirable, ''in carbonic oxide we possess such
an agent, which has the property OF destroying
life rapidly and painlessly when properly
administered" He refers to writings of DR..
b. W. Richardson Of London, who, sew
eral years ago. brought this method to public
notice for the destruction of small domes-
tic animals, such as dogs and cats, and espe-
cially to Dr. Richardson's statement that 1000
such animals had been destroyed in London in
few months previous to the doctors article on
''The Painless Extinction of Life" DR.. Abbott
says carbonic oxide may be made from
charcoal at small cost or it may be obtained
more cheaply still from the street mains Of any
coal and water-gas company. Water gas he
considers preferable to coal gas, since II con-
tains from four to FIVE times as much carbonic
oxide and would therefore be more rapid and
fatal in its action. He says: San atmosphere
case of water gas or, still better, one of 80 per
cent or more, as NAV be made from charcoal,
would undoubtedly destroy human life in less
than two minutes and without pain" He has
himself used mixture of about per cent,
with air, with perfect success in destroying
small from n
minutes without the appearance Of pain.
DIR. Abbott goes on to show that the appara-
tus for an execution may be of the simplest
and most inexpensive kind, and suggests q
tight wooden box, three feet square and seven
feet high, tightly fitting door, an aperture
for admitting a gas pipe OF liberal size for ap-
plying rapid supply of gas under ordinary
pressure from the street main and q smaller
aperture to allow Of expulsion of the air. II a
higher percentage of carbonic oxide is desired
a small charcoal furnace would be required for
generating it and storing 1t temporarily, as in
the case OF DIR. Richardson's lethal chamber.
OF this method DR.. Richardson says: Com
pared with other methods of extinguishing ami
NAL life, such as hanging, drowning, poison
ing by prussic acid. shooting, stunning, the
lethal method stands far ahead on every
ground Of practical readiness, certainly
humanity" In summing up, DIR. Alb
bott claims for carbonic oxide the advantages
of painless death, rapid action and economy
In respect to the second point he says: 'Its
action should not be COMPOUNDED with the slow
action of small percentages of gas, such as is
illustrated by the accidental deaths often oc-
curing in hotels. These almost invariably
happen by exposure to the gas escaping from
a mere pin hole or slit in the gas burner, which
consequently forms but one per cent of the air
of the apartment and destroys life slowly" In
regard to economy he says that the cost Of the
wooden box would be but trife, and the ex-
pense of rs or 100 feet Of gas scarcely worth
mentioning when compared with the expensive
apparatus required for an electrical execution.