But please consider this: If we press upon the carotid arteries which pass up through the neck to form the arterial circle of Willis, at the base of the brain, within the skull, and which supplies the brain with blood–we quickly produce insensibility. Thought is abolished, consciousness lost. And if we continue the pressure, all those automatic actions of the body, such as the beating of the heart, the breathing motions of the lungs, which maintain life and are controlled by the lower brain centers of ganglia, are quickly stopped and death ensues. It is possible to produce coma, insensibility, and death, simply by pressure of the thumbs on the carotid artery…