ELECTRIC SHOCK

Abstract

The electric current has always been a source of danger to man. Lightning alone constituted the electric danger of antiquity, responsible for many deaths by a current estimated at millions of volts and about 20,000 amperes. Apparently there were no serious effects from synthetic electricity until 1879, when a stage carpenter was electrocuted at Lyons by an alternating current of 250 volts from a Siemens dynamo and died in twenty minutes. Currents dangerous enough to kill, however, were used as far back as 1849 to light a stage in Paris. The use of electricity in the home, office and factory has increased to such a tremendous extent that energized wires now form a dangerous and intricate network, surrounding one at every turn. FACTORS INFLUENCING THE BIOLOGIC EFFECTS OF THE ELECTRIC CURRENT In discussing the biologic effects of the electric current, I am primarily interested in unconsciousness and burns. Shocks too