Nicolae Minovici: The Man Who Hanged Himself Repeatedly To Study Death!

Nicolae, say Cheese! (credit)

Continuing my series of brave (and stupid!) scientists who pulled all kinds of crazy and dangerous self-experiments in the name of science, today I want to present you the Romanian Nicolae Minovici. In case you missed the previous episodes, don't forget to read about Evan O’Neill Kane who operated on himself 3 times, Michael Smith who purposely put bees to sting his penis and Frederick Hoelzel who ate asbestos and sawdust among other things!

Now, back to Nicolae Minovici. Our hero was born in in Râmnicu Sărat, Romania on  23 October 1868 and died at the age of 73 in 26 June 1941 from an illness affecting his vocal cords.

During his lifetime he amassed quite an impressive CV. He was a forensic scientist and criminologist who served in Romania's anthropometric service, founder of the Legal Medicine Association of Romania and publisher of the Romanian journal of Legal Medicine. He even became mayor at some point in Băneasa of Bucharest and published some research on tattooing and its connections with criminal behavior which became an instant hit for some reason.

But what he will always best remembered for is his research on the effects of hanging to humans. I guess finding volunteers for such an experiment wasn't very successful (I wonder why?!) so all his research was carried out in one subject. Himself!

So, while being a professor of forensic science at the State School of Science in Bucharest, our hero set out in a journey to study the effects hanging had on humans. To do-so he DIYed various asphyxiation devices like this one: 

(credit)

Initially, the experiments involved him partially hanging himself in various positions and recording what happened to himself. At first, he could only hang in there (HA!) for about 5 seconds but with experience he managed to endure for 25 seconds. Some of the symptoms he reported included vision disturbances, change in skin color and ear ringing.

But in all fairness, these early experiments were nothing to brag about. After all, he lifted himself only partially and he didn't use a constricting knot like they do in real hangings. If he wanted to call himself a real man he had to hang himself the way real men do. 

And the motherfucker almost did it! In his final experiment he used a rope with an actual Hangman's knot, put his head inside and signaled his aides to start pulling the rope. He only managed to endure the pain for four seconds before frantically signaling his assistants to stop the experiment. And his feet were still touching the ground! Imagine how bad the real deal must be! Still, this caused enough damage to his throat that he had trouble swallowing for the next month!  

This was the last time Nicolae played with ropes. But his chocking research didn't stop there. Although he couldn't find volunteers willing to get hanged he did find volunteers willing to get a milder form of choking:

He also performed choking experiments on volunteers by applying pressure on their carotid arteries and jugular veins for up to five seconds, until the faces of his subjects became red. During their post-experiment accounts, the volunteers recounted experiences such as vision problems, heat sensation in the head, as well as paraesthesias such as a tingling and numbing sensation in multiple places of their bodies. [source]

Overall I will give Nicolae Minovici a C+ when it comes to badassery because in the end he didn't manage to hang himself like a true gentleman. Still, he gets a pass from me which speaks volumes about his work!