Death by electric currents and by lightning : the Goulstonian lectures for 1913 delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of London / by A.J. Jex-Blake.

  • Jex-Blake, Arthur John, 1873-1957.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Death by electric currents and by lightning : the Goulstonian lectures for 1913 delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of London / by A.J. Jex-Blake. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    (1) By direct action, the mechanical effect or dis- ruptive action of the electric current on the tissues; or (2) By indirect or reflex action on the nervous centres. In the first case death is final; in the second it is often apparent only, so that the victim may recover if treated by artificial respiration immediately after receiving the shock. Most of the victims of industrial electric accidents had died of asphyxia, he believed. In 1889 Donlin published some details of ten autopsies made on electrocuted criminals in America, and advanced the view that death was due to action of the electric current (conducted by the blood) upon the ganglia of the heart, causing a spasm of the heart muscle; in other cases it was produced by disorganization of the blood and interference with the circulation. I cannot find that these two theories ever had much vogue, or that the spasm of the heart muscle and disorganization of the blood have ever been observed experimentally, either before or after Donlin’s elaboration of these views. An editorial in the Lancet (1890) brought forward the explanation that electro- cuted persons died “ by concussion of the brain and explosion within the closed cavity of the skull ”; here, again, we have a theory of the cause of death that lacks any experimental evidence in its favour or even rational support. As a contrast may be quoted the excellent experiments made in 1890 by Tatum, upon dogs for the most part. He found no post-mortem lesions unless he used current densities many times in excess of those needed to produce death; weak currents might produce death by arresting respiration, strong currents by a permanent arrest of the heart without influencing respiration, while currents of intermediate strength might kill by arresting both the heart and the respiration simultaneously. Tatum appears to me to have been the first to give due promi- nence to the fact that death by electricity is generally due to paralysis of the heart, and depends on injury of the heart muscle rather than of the nerves of the heart. He also showed that section of the vagi and the use of atropine or curare gave no protection against the fatal result in these electrocutions—observations that are hard to explain on the theory that death by electric currents is due to nervous inhibition. Tatum also showed that a given current would be most fatal when the two electrodes were placed in the neighbourhood of the heart. One may say that from the year 1890 onwards three main theories of the cause of death by electricity have held sway. The first was d’Arsonval’s theory, that it was due to nervous inhibition of the heart and respiration. The second, as advanced by Tatum, attributed death to direct paralysis of the cardiac muscle by the passage of the electric current through it. The third, based mainly on the post-mortem examinations of electrocuted criminals in America, put death down to the gross lesions—haemor- rhages—found in the brain and bulb of the victims, and