Polite Dissent

Detective Comics #835
John Rozum, writer
Tom Mandrake, artist

The Scarecrow has escaped incarceration, but not before causing tremendous fear in the other inmates, particularly the ones who were picking on him:

Guard: In attempting to block out Crane’s words, he pushed his fingers all the way through his ear drums into his brain…which is only moderately less horrifying than his friend gagging down his own intestines.

While the ear canal does eventually reach the inside of the skull, it’s not a straight shot. It’s a convoluted passage that passes through the middle ear and inner ear and eventually narrows so that only the VIIth and VIIIth cranial nerves (and a small blood vessel) can fit through.

You can’t just ram your fingers deep in your ears and expect to hit brain (thankfully, or we’d see a lot of kids with Q-tip induced brain injuries). Assuming your fingers are long enough, you’d rupture the ear drum (pain, dizziness, loss of hearing) and disrupt the bones of the middle ear that you learned about in elementary school. With extra-long and narrow fingers, you might be able to reach far enough to disrupt the semicircular canals and cochlea of the inner ear (severe vertigo, balance problems, and hearing loss). Even then, there are lots of turns and a little thing called the skull in the way of reaching the brain.

The inmate who tried to hang himself with his intestines, but then resorted to just choking himself on them, presents other logistical problems. How’s he going to open up his abdomen to reach his intestines using just his bare hands? If he is able to get into his abdominal cavity, remember that the intestines aren’t just hanging loosely — they’re attached to their nerves, blood vessels, and various support tissues. It would take a great deal of work and brute strength to pull out and free up enough intestines to choke oneself, let alone hang oneself. I simply don’t think that a person would have the strength left to swallow anything (especially intestines) after having eviscerated themselves. And did I mention it would be excruciatingly painful and very messy?

Of course, bear in mind that these comments apply to ordinary people. If one were super strong — and insane enough — then one could theoretically push their way into their skull and brain through the ears, or rip out their own intestines and choke themselves (but remember these inmates are explicitly described as gen-pop, and not possessing super powers).