Asphyxia by Electricity

1895

According to Professor Kratter of Gratz, who has for some time been performing experiments on the effect of electrical shocks on animal life, death is most usually caused by sudden cessation of respiration and consequent suffocation. During the suffocation the heart continues its action. If the asphyxia lasts more than a certain time, about two minutes, the heart stops, this being a secondary phenomenon.

Generally speaking, the animals used — cats, dogs, rabbits and mice — were not easily killed by 1600-2000 volts alternating. The danger appears to lie in the nervous system and to decrease with the amount of brain development. Frequently death occurs by momentary stoppage of the movement of the heart, but a slow cessation of the heart's action, such as has been observed in cases of human death, was never observed.

In no case was any anatomical alteration observable to which death might be attributed, but there are sometimes lesions, breaking of blood vessels, and the diagnosis is rendered certain by the peculiar burning at the position of contact and by the escape of blood from the capillaries, which indicates the path taken by the current. — Philadelphia Record.