Millheim Journal. [volume] (Millheim, Pa.) 1876-1984, 1883-08-30
LIGHTNING.

n hHOlb Illio dBo All lleln WAS eAJen-
siyely published relating the circum-
stances of the death of child from
fright caused by thunder storm.
She was ten years of age, and having
been reused from sleep by the thunder.
implored permission to share her
mothers bed till the storm was over.
This was refused her and she grew so
quiet that her parent went to see what
was the matter. She reached the
child's bedside just in time to see her
die. Another incident Of death from
fear of lightning was reported from
Cleveland recently. The victim was
an elderly lady who lived alone. An
unusually sharp and near flash, follow
ed by an Instant crash of thunder, so
overcame her that she fell to the floor
and died, as though the current had
passed through her. While cases of
such extreme terror caused by light
ming are rare, even rarer than death
from the slock itself, fear of lightning
in less intense form is by no means
uncommon 1t is Il notable fact that
courageous and healthy men are some
times very unpleasantly affected, if
not with har, at all events with
sense of acute discomfort, not only
after sharp flash and instant eXplo-
sion, but bsfore storm approaches.
During the progress of the tempest
their discomfort increases. Some COM
plain of laSitude and headache before
a storm, due, doubtless, TO the absence
of ozone in the air; others, as the flashes
occur more frequently, experience
nausea, and sometimes an unpleasant
quivering about the abdomen. These
are symptoms that accompany acute
terror sometimes, but the sense of fear
is probably absent. How to account
for the phenomenon is not easy.
Supposing that its cause is purely OBJ
jective, why should some people suffer
and others escape? or why should the
same person suffer at one time and
not at another? AS a general thing
children do not fear lightning or even
thunder; and adults who have long
suffered may overcome the dread in
various ways. A mother who would
take refuge in closet during a storm,
fur instourj, and give way 10 the most
unreasGning terror, on being warned
to master her fears for the sake of the
wondering child may be entirely re-
Iieved of apprehension during storm.
Of courae, reason tells us that the
chance of being killed by lightning is
so small as to te hardly appreciable.
According to the state census of 1875,
during that yea1 eighteen people were
killed by lightning, while forty were
murdered: 1914 committed suicide; $50
were drowned, 279 were killed by falls
and 33 by kicks from horses and mules.
Water, therefore, is twenty times as
dangerous as lightning, and the horse
and the mule ara doubly deserving of
the terror which a thunder storm pro-
vokes. Moreover, it could be shown,
no doubt, that ninety per cent. of the
deaths caused by lightning were due
to foolish exposure, such as taking
refuge beneath a tree or carrying an
umbrella during a thunder storm.
These facts, or their general infer
ences, are pretty well known, but they
are powerless to prevent fright One
solution Of the mystery is that nerves
out of tone and flaccid may be suscep-
tible to subtle influences unfelt by
healthy persnS another is that the
dread comes from habit rather than
anything else, and may be overcome
by the exercises of will power. There
is current belief that lightning never
strikes twice in the same place.
Blackmore, tie brilliant English novel
ist, however, processes to have data to
prove the contrary principe, so far as
human beings are concerned, namely
that person who has once been struck
invites a repetition of the blow. and is
in greater danger than one who has
never had that unpleasing experience.
- RroOkZ1J1l Eu0As