ELECTRIC SHOCKS

Evening Star, Issue 21711, 4 May 1934, Page 13

ELECTRIC SHOCKS

UNSOLVED MYSTERIES Accidents, fatal and non-fatal, due to electricity are on the increase. One high authority in England has stated that they lire bound to increase even more rapidly in the next ten years owing to the wider use of electricity for domestic and industrial purposes. Yc-t only two people In Britain -Dr A. M. Critchley, M.D., Ch.B., D.Ph., and Miss Hilary Long, B.Sc., M*.B., B.S.— have made a special study of the treatment of electric shockA paper on ‘ Clinical Features and Treatment of Electrical Injuries,’ by Miss Long, in a recent issue of .the ‘ Medical Press and Circular,’ reveals the variety of effects that electric shock can have on the human body, and the blunders, sometimes fatal the victim, that have resulted from lack of medical knowledge. For instance, when a man receives an electric shockfhe sometimes falls apparently dead. There is no sign of breathing, no sound of the heart beating, and the pulse stops. Artificial respiration is tried for perhaps twenty minutes, and then abandoned as hopeless. “It must be begun on. the scene of the accident, and continued for at least a hour, even in the apparent absence of success,” says Miss long. Queer things happen that even, men who have made a life-long study of electric shock cannot understand. The most baffling example occurred recently. _ Only four cases of it are known. This is what happens. A man receives an electric shock and collapses as if dead. After a few seconds he stands up, makes a perfectly sensible. remark, such -as “I’ve been struck.,” walks 3yds—and then falls dead. Human resistance to' electrical : shock varies. Even in the individual it varies from minute to minute. No one knows why. It has been found that a person prepared for electric shock, such as a workman handling electric wires or machinery, is-in less danger of injury than the person to whom the shock is completely unexpected. Much remains to be learned about electrocution if ; lives are hot to be thrown away through ignorance.