THE EFFECTS OF LIGHTNING

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VII, Issue 1087, 6 May 1880, Page 2

THE EFFECTS OF LIGHTNING

A paper was read at a recent meeting of the Clinicla Society by Dr. G. Wilks, of Ashford, the "Glasgow Herald" states, on a remarkable case of lightn-inf,'-stroko which oocurred on June Bth, 1878. A farm laborer was struck by lightning while standing under a willow tree, close to the window of a shed in which his three fellow-workmen had jusfc taken shelter from a violent storm of rain. His companions found the tree partly denuded of its bark, and the patient's boots standing at its foot. The patient himself was lying on hia back two yards off, and though he was naked, with absolutely on except part of the left arm of his flannel vest. He waa conscious, but much.

burnt, and his leg was badly broken. The field around was strewn with fragments of clothing ; the clothes were split or torn from top to bottom, the edges of the fragments being often torn into ahreds or fringes ; they only] showed evidences of fire where they came in contact with metal, such aa his watch and the buckle of his waistbelt. There were no laces in his boots. The left boot was torn and twisted into fantastic shapes, but the soul was uninjured, and there was no sign of fire upon it ; the right feet had the leather much torn and tha sole rent and burnt. The watch had a hole burnt through the case, and the chain was almost entirely destroyed. The stockings were split down the inner side ; the hat was uninjured. The patient said that he was struck violently on the chest and shoulders, became enveloped in a blinding light, and was hurled into the air, coming down on hia back "all of a crash," and never losing consciousness. The hair of his face was burnt and the body was covered with burns. Down each thigh and leg was a broad crimson indurated band of burning passing along the inner side of the knee, and ending below the left inner ankle and at the right heel ; a lacerated wound, with a comminuted fracture of the os calcis. The bones of the right leg were fractured, and the tibia protruded through the skin in the course of the burn. He was discharged healed twenty weeks after the occurrence. Dr. Wilks remarked on the almost complete exemption from injury of the nervous system, and on the probability that the clothes being wet acted as good conductors, and so diverted that electric current from the great nervous trunks, thus saving the man's life.

A fire occurred at Mr Wood's farm at Waitepeka on Saturday afternoon, when 1000 bushels of threshed oata and one stack of oats (containing 200 bushels), together with a barn, were consumed. There was no insurance. Tho origin of the fire is unknown, and there are no suspicions.