Accidents from the electric current : a contribution to the study of the action of currents of high potential upon the human organism / by Philip Coombs Knapp.

  • Knapp, Philip Coombs.
Date:
1890
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Accidents from the electric current : a contribution to the study of the action of currents of high potential upon the human organism / by Philip Coombs Knapp. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    cerebral meninges, capillary haemorrhages, especially in the pons and medulla, the heart relaxed, the blood fluid, and respiration suspended. Biggs14 in four autopsies, found dark fluid blood, rigor mortis, conges- tion of the viscera, and small haemorrhages in the serous membranes. Richardson,15 in animals killed by a gigantic induction coil, found the vessels of the brain distended, the heart filled with blood on the right side, the viscera congested, and the blood fluid. Peterson,16 iu animals killed by the electric current, found the blood dark and fluid, the viscera congested but without extravasations, and the nerve sheaths occasionally gorged with blood and showing capillary extravasa- tions. He thinks there are no pathognomonic signs of death by electricity, but that it divides and dis- arranges the * fine molecular structure of the body. Tatum17 believes that there is no lesion after death which can be ascribed to electricity. The black, fluid blood, which is most constant, is due to the fact that the molecular life of the tissues persists after the cessa- tion of circulation and respiration. He found, by ex- periments on dogs, that electricity did not impair the functions of muscles or nerves, that it caused no appre- ciable change in the blood, and that its fatal action was due to the arrest of the heart's action ; the arrest being caused by the action on the heart itself, aud not, prob- ably, by the action on the medulla or the nerve supply. In some cases the shock itself does not prove fatal, but the burns are extensive, and slough, and the pa- tient may finally succumb. The following case was admitted to the service of Dr. M. F. Gavin, at the Boston City Hospital, and he has kindly permitted,me to cite it here. 14 Biggs: New York Medical Jtteoord, November 2,1889. Richardson : Medical Times and Gazette, May 15, June 5, and August 14,1869. 18 Harold P. Brown : Op. cit.. p. 60. « Tatum. New York Medical Journal, February 22, 1890,