Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-10-05
AN ELECTRIC KENTUCKIAN.

AN ELECTRIC EENTUCKIAN.
The Marvellous Power of Everett Gil
bert, of Spencer COunty-A Pocket
knife, Dark Cloud and = Binding
Flash of L1ghtning-A Man Eternally
Surcharged With EIeetrfeity-What
Happened When He Rolled in the Mud
How the Northern Lights Affect Him.
FALMOUTH, Ky, Sept. 24.-YOu have
/ often heard Of the electrical eel found in
! some Of the waters Of South America, but
who has ever heard Of an electrical man
one constantly surcharged with electri-
! city? l became acquainted with such a
case some time ago in Spencer county,
/ Ky. The mans name is Everett Gilbert,
4 and his age is now about 26. He says
I that about eight years ago he went out on
a very warm, sultry day in June, to work
! on his fathers farm. A thunder storm
I coming up he, with others, took refuge in
! a house not far away. Drawing his chair
to the door, he took out his pocketknife,
I opened it and began sticking it into the
| top Of the chair. A binding flash came
! from a very dark cloud, at which he was
! looking, and he fell TO the floor and was
/ insensiDle for several hours. When con-
| seriousness returned he felt excruciating
/ pains all through his body and was in a
! critical condition for several weeks. He
/ gradually recovered, though unable to
work any more that summer. The fol-
/ lowing winter he went to school in Tay-
/ lOrsvIlle, five or six miles from his home.
/ He noticed that at certain times he was
/ the subject of very peculiar sensations.
/ His father, physician, DR.. Robert 5. Gill
/ bert, prescribed remedies that failed TO
| give relief.
! One night Everett got home from school
4 just before a severe thunder storm came
I up. He was sitting on the front steps
/ when he was suddenly seized with vio-
/ lent spasms. He was taken mo the
/ house. His father observed that these
! spasms and twitchings of the hands and
/ arms always came on before a thunder
I storm and soon found that his boy was
/ sUrcharged with electricity. He tried
/ various experiments to draw it of. These
were partially successful. Everett SAYS
that one day under a shed in a wheat field
during storm his bodily tOrtures were
feartully severe. 1t occurred to him that
if he should strip himself naked and lie
down in the mud it might act as a con-
ductor and give him relief. He did so and
the effect was agOniZing. The electricity
left his body with such a terrible shock
! that it seemed as if his side had been torn
open and the flesh was being stripped from
the bones. The agony for moment was
! indescribable. 1t was like red-hot iron
passing down his side with inconceivable
rapicity. He afUerward proceeded with
greater caution and experienced great re-
lief on such occasions by removing his
shoes and stockings and wading in the
mud.
He said that one day on his return home
from Louisville in buggy, a storm came
up and his whole body seemed filled with
electricity. The pain became insupport-
able and he thought that he would try to
discharge the fluid by using the tire of a
wheel as a conductor. Selling it eagerly
with his hand he was thrown violently
head foremost into the road, where. after
lying a few moments, he recovered. He
afterward touched the wheel cautiously
with his finger and thus was relieved.
One most singular fact is that only the
left side of his body was affected. No
matter how heavily OYercharged that side
might be, the right side would not act as
a conductor and draw it off. He suffered
pain only in the left side, including also
that side of mis- head, in which it was often
ex ruciating.
About six years ago, the electricity
seeming to have left him, he went to Texas,
but was compelled to return in about two
months. He says the air where he was
Sulphur Springs, Hopkins county )seemed
all the time filed with electricity. He
could scarcely breathe in it and felt him
self in an electrical condition wherever
he went. One day he met friend-a del
icate young man-and they shook hands.
The friend shouted: you burn me; let
CO."
The young man wrung his hand and
SAID he felt innumerable sensations like
needle pricks darling through his BODY.
Mr.. Gilbert told him Of his condition, and
at his young friends request rubbed his
arm and head, the latter saying it did him
much good. He seemed to be, as probably
many others are, negatively electrified,
as it required but slight contact to pro-
duce a shock. On leaving Texas he found
that his RICH side was affected as well as
the left, and has seemed about equally so
ever since.
He is sensible of the approach Of a
thunder storm twenty-fOur hours before
its occurrence, and then suffers unuttera-
bic misery-frst, a numbness, particularly
in his left side, followed by most dis
tressing feeling Of dependency. These
feelings increase with the approach of the
storm. He then discharges the electricity
that is in him by conductor every few
minutes, for if he delays doing it until the
storm is actually on, 1t cannot be dis
charged as rapidly as it accumulates and
ne suffers intense pains in his head and
body, which he describes as sharp and
darting, like needle points tipped with
fire. The brain seems alive with these
fiery little darts, the muscles jerk and
twitch, and those in the arm contract into
knots. He predicts rain with infallible
certainty. Sometimes people are very in
credulous, but they always find he is cor
rect. He is a very large man, fully six
feet high, but he says the air was so full
of electricity during the remarkably wet
cr1r,n onn hot in a farr
weeks he was reduced in weight from 215
pounds to 1875.
If he is asleep when storm comes up
it never fails to awaken him, and, if lie is
lying with his head toward it, he must get
up and put his feet in that direction, for
unless he does so the pains in his head
are intolerable. He can easier bear them
in his feet. If his left side happens to be
turned toward the storm he feels pecu-
liar Earring sensation and awakens Imme-
diately. He says that if he holds out his
hanu, or points his finger toward a storm
cloud, the electricity Tushes from it TO
him.
The psychological effects are still more
remarkable. He has been going to school
nearly all his life. Before he was struck
by lightning he was particularly bright
in grammar and history. He was quite
familiar with the history of the world and
was well advanced in geography, but was
especially dull in arithmetic. Immedi-
ately after the shock he forgot nearly all
he ever knew about grammar, geography
and history, and can now hardly name
half the capitals of the States, but he is
the wonder in his section of the country
for his phenomenal skill in arithmetic.
He says he could talk for a week about
his wonderful gift in this department and
then by no means exhaust the subject.
He says he does not reason out any of the
questions or problems proposed to him,
but that he simply feels them out. as he
expresses it, solving them as by intuition.
He never uses a sla te or pencil, and works
all examples that j. ave ever been present
ed to him in his bi in. Another curious
fact is that the mo fully charged with
| electricity he is the more readily are math-
ematical questions suggested to his mind,
! and the more easily are they solved. He
has often been tested with difficult prob
| lens. to which he has gwen correct sOlu-