Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 December 1894 — THE JAW’S ANGLE. [ARTICLE]

THE JAW’S ANGLE.

”hy an Ordinary Elow Delivered There May Prove Fata). Baltimore Sun. “Why is a blow upon the angle of a man’s jaw—the knock-out blow of pugilists—so effective, and what is the immediate result of such a blow?” In view of the recent death of Con Riordan after a boxing bout with Champion Fitzsimmons-, the question was put to B. Merrill Hopkinson, himself an athlete, and the Prcsidentof the Baltimore Athletic Club. Dr. Hopkinson has given study to anatomy and physiology in their relation to athletic exercises. He said:

“It is somewhat difficult, without entering into technicalities, to describe properly the knock-out blow. The skull rests upon the ‘atlas,’ the first of the bones or vertebrae of the neck. The articulation or joint is simply by means of a contact of the condyles or proturbances at the base of the skull with two facets on tha atlas. This arrangement is most favorable for movements of the head but is susceptible to dislocation. ‘-Immediately at the base of the skull is the foramen magnum—a great hole —which forms the passageway between the skull cavity and the spinal .canal? Through this pass the spinal portion of the central nervous system and vertebral arteries.

“A blow delivered upon the angle of the jaw is, of course, given directly at right angles to the passageway between the body and brain, through which run the wonderfully delicate structures. Now, owing to the slender joint of the skull with the’ spinal column, resistance must necessarily be very weak, and a blow, a 1 ight one, 4s capable of producing so great a shock that a man can readily be rendered unconscious by its effect. “An experiment is very simple. Let any one strike himself a quick blow just at the angle of the jaw and he will find that he is dazed just in proportion to the amount of force applied. That it is possible to kill a man by such a blow has been demonstrated more than once, and more is the pity that such a thing can be recorded in the recital of the socalled amusements.

“I do not believe that a man in good physical training, with healthy heart and arteries and well nourished nervous system, could be destroyed by such a blow by another man who is his physical equal, but it would not take a sledge hammer blow delivered upon the angle of the jaw to produce a thrombus or blood clot at the base of the brain of a man whose heart, arteries and nervous system had been weakened by alcoholic or other excesses.

“Temporary knock outs occur daily and fatal cases are of rare occurrence; indeed, the proportions of deaths as compared with horse racing or football is ridiculously small. Any mamentering* the pugilistic ring is liable to receive! a blow which will ‘put him to sleep,’ and the duration of unconsciousness is altogether proportioned to the science of the delivered blow, the positfon of the man struck and the amount of force used,"