Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.
64/740

skin coat, and on his body there were found the most frightful mutilations ; and in three hours after, his body was as rigid as a mass of stone. So in some cases where persons have been killed by lightning, we may find the muscles rigid as if solid, while others are as remarkably flaccid. The blood is usually* if not always, as fluid as during life, or even more so, but prob- ably never coagulated. Putrefaction commences most frequently at once, and goes on shockingly. But there are cases recorded where the corpse was found sound after a great length of time, as if petrified, or possessing some antiseptic property or state, that resists all decomposition. But mutilations very rarely occur in the human organism, while animals are very frequently broken and torn asunder. Dr. Boudin states, that out of several hundred persons killed by lightning, he found only six bodies that were mutilated ; of these there were four of partial or total tearing out of the tongue. The great prominence of the eyeball is often produced; sometimes there is a small hole in the skull, as if shot. These different solutions of continuity may mark the route of the lightning in that individual case, but as yet we know of no law to determine it, other than circumstances — such as position of the body at the moment; the greater or less conductibility of the body, or of the clothing; the insulation, approximation, or line of direction for conducting the electric fluid towards him, or from him, in a direct route between the point where the bolt leaves its conductor to skip to a better conductor. Effects of Atmospheric Electricity on the human Organism. The human organism is decidedly affected by atmospheric elec- tricity, from the slighter changes in the electric state of the air, as well as by bolts of lightning-. Healthy individuals even feel the exhilaration of a serene and positive atmosphere, as also an increased heaviness and oppression at the opposite state of the air. If the weather be stormy, and the air is surcharged either positively or negatively, or is suddenly changed from the one to the other state, then do we find the neuralgic, the rheumatic, 5