FREAKS OF LIGHTNING.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 105, 1 May 1909, Page 2

FREAKS OF LIGHTNING.

THE VAGARIES OF ELECTRICITY

Curious stories connected with, the manner of deaths of victims of light-ning-st/roke are discussed by an edito/rial waiter in the Lancet (London). Many of these are doubtless superstitions oa* inventions, but other® are certainly true, though it is difficult to draw the line between the two classes.

A very curious effect is sometimes produced. The person struck is killed and yet he remains in the v-exy attitude in which he was at the niomemt of death. Eight farm-laboreirs were resting at dinner, undea? aa oak when they were all struck 'and killed! by tihe same flash of lightning. When found they -appeared to be still eating. One held a glass, another was carrying a piece of bread to bis nioutli, and a third had his hand on a plat©. In another case a woman was struck while picking a poppy. The* body was found standing with, the flower still in her hand. The most probable explanation of these occurrences- is the instantaneous onset of rigor mortis. Perhaps the most curious accompaniment of a lightning shock is the stripping off of the clothes. This appears to be veiry common. Dr G. Wilks, of Ashford, Kent, describes a case in which a man was struck by lightning while standing by a willow tree. Immediately afterwards his boots were found at the foot of the tree and the mam was lying on his back two yards off, absolutely naked except for part of the left arm of his flannel vest. He was conscious, but much burned, and his left leg was broken. Tlie field ■around was strewn with fragments of the clothes, which were torn from top to bottom. The boots were1 partly ■torn. Flammarion mentions a case in 1898 in which three women were standing round a reaping-machine when one of them was struck by •lightning and killed; the two others were uninjured, but they were striped

absolutely naked, even their boots being removed.

A LIGHTNING SHAVE.

Little less remarkable is the shaving effect which is sometimes seen. Two nien'wbo were in a windmill were struck by lightning. They were both rendered deaf, and the hair, beard and eyebrows ov one wore burned. A woman who' was struck had the hair of her head completely removed. Sometimes the- hair returns, and sometimes the part is permanently bald. In the case at Krugersdorp bones were broken, and a few other similar cases are recorded. Probably in some o-f them the fracture was caused by the fall. Flamniarion mentions a ca.se in. which eight sheep were struck; all their bones had been broken as though crushed in a mortar; the fall would not account for this. When an electric current is passed through a number of persons holding hands it is generally felt most by those at thei end of the' chain, and several cases have been recorded in which only those which may be called the terminals of a series of animals are damaged. Five horses in a line received a stroke of lightning ;• only the first and the last were killed. On another occasion five horses in a stable were struck; the only one to escape death was the one in the centre. Several remarkable accounts have been recorded where alternate animals of a. series have been killed. During a storm in 1901 lightning entered a stable where there were twenty cows, and it killed ten of them. The first, the third and so on wea-G' killed, while the second, the fourth and so on, survived. Cases of complete incineration are not rare, but more remarkable are the instances in which the body of a man, killed by lightning lias appeared to be unaltered, but w rhen touched it has crumbled to dust. In 1838 three soldiers took shelter under a tree, and a stroke of lightning killed them all, but 'they all remained standing, and even* their clothes appeared to be intact, but when touched the bodies fell into a heap of ashes.