ELECTRIC SHOCKS

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 9 April 1934, Page 5

ELECTRIC SHOCKS

UNSOLVED MYSTERi ES. SOME BAFFLING EXAMPLES. Accidents, fatal and non-fatal, due to electricity are on the increase. One high authority in England has stated that they are bound to increase even more rapidly in the next ten years owing to the wider use of electricity for domestic and industrial purposes. Yet it is said that only two people in Britain—Dr. A. M. Oritchley, M.D., Ch.B., D.Ph., and Miss Hilary Long, B.Se., ALB., B.S.—have made a special study of the treatment of electric shock.

A 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 to the victim, that have resulted from lack of medical knowledge. ■ For instance, when a. man receives an electric shock he 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 hopeloss. “It must be begun on the scene of the accident, and continued for at least an hour, even in the apparent absence of success, says Aliss Lone.

Queer tilings happen that even men who have made a life-long study of eletric shock cannot understand. The most baffling example occurred recently. Only four cases of it are known, 'j'bis in wlisit happens: A man receives an electric shock and collapses as if dead. After a few seconds lie stands up, makes a perfectly sensible remark, such as “I’ve been- struck.”- walks three yards—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, is in less danger of injury than the irerson to whom the shock is completely unexpected. Aluch remains to be learned about electrocution if lives are not to be thrown away in ignorance.