What effect does Crucifixion have on toes and fingers?

[frost]

Here's another possibility: suspension trauma. If I read this paper correctly: ordinarily, when a person's upright, the contraction of muscles in the legs pushes blood back up into the body. If the legs are hanging so that contraction doesn't take place, blood pools in the legs, and eventually the heart doesn't get enough to maintain circulation. Under this explanation, death by crucifixion would occur when the subject is too exhausted to push downward with his legs any more.

https://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3733&context=lnq

 

[Tmaster]

IIRC the research on crucifixion by the late forensic pathologist Dr. Frederick Zugibe (d. 2013) concludes that crucifixion victims died from hypovolemic shock rather than the victims being too exhausted to lift themselves up to breathe in enough air.

His research put live volunteers including his son on a cross in his house but like with other experiments no one was actually nailed so it could not be said with certainty if the shock theory is factual as well as theoretical.

Too bad he is the LATE Dr. Zugibe. I'd like to volunteer. You know, to help him with his research.