DON’T LOSE YOUR HEAD

How long could you live without your head? Bryson tells the story of Charlotte Corday, guillotined in 1793 for the murder of radical leader Jean-Paul Marat.

Corday “was said to wear a look of fury and resentment when the executioner held her head up to the cheering crowd.” Others were reported to have blinked or moved their lips, but was it reflex or exaggeration? “In 1803, two German researchers decided to bring some scientific rigour to the matter,” Bryson writes. “They pounced on the heads as they fell and examined them immediately for any sign of alertness, shouting, ‘Do you hear me?’ None responded.” Loss of consciousness was deemed immediate, “or at least too swift to measure.”