Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1895-09-26

Is IA variable quantity depending part.
" on the person, but principally on
the contacts made by the hands Or
body with the conductors. Under the
most favorable conditions Of contact,
the hands being wet, and graspinQ
large metal conductors, the resistance
Is seldom leAs than one Thousand
ohms. This on u five-hundrd-volt OR.
cult, such as q railway circuit, sup
posing the contacts to be Us good "a
the above, would give current Of
only one-half Of an ampere. This cur.
rent would probably not kill person,
unless very nervous and timid, when
1t is possible that the subject might
die OF stoppage Of the heart caused by
fright
There was q case In the writer's
own experience In which u lneman
who was repairing Il railway power
station switchboard grasped two Of
the bus-bars by mistake ut tho same
time, probably to save himself from
falling, and by the contraction Of the
muscles In his arms was drawn up to
the board until his forehead and nose
were brought In contract with the up.
per bns.bar, when part OF the current
passed through from hand to hand,
and part through face and neck to
hand. No one knew how long he had
been In that position, although 1t was
under three minutes, for which time
the engineer had left him 10 20 Into
the boiler room. When the engi-
neer came back to the engine
room he smelt burning flesh, Of.
though the distance from tho
switchboard to the boiler room door
was at leust eighty feet The engineer
Immediately surmised the truth, and |
rushing behind the board found the
man unconscious aud In the position |
described above. lie pulled him off by |
main strength, and In eight or ten
minutes the man came to. The writer
was just outside the building at the
time, and spoke with the man after he
had regained consciousness He did
not seem to mind ltmuch, and said that
he did not remember that II hurt him
any, but he felt merely sleepy and
dazed. Half an hour afterward he was
walking about apparently as we'll as
ever, though his hands and face we're
badly burned. lie has never had any
III effects from his accident since, as
far a. Is known, although probably he
would never have recovered II he had
been left on there much longer.
A curious case was reported In
Georgetown, Demerara, In which o
colored man, who was standing with
bare feet on damp barn floor, was
killed while turning on an incandescent
lamp, which was on an alternating
current at tifty-two volts pressure,
This death was probably caused by a
ground on the primary circuit Of over
one Thousand volts, IA subsequent In.
vestigatlon showed that the insulation
was broken down between the primary
and secondary coils In the trans.
former, on which supposition he might,
and probably did, receive shock from
about eight hundred to nine hundred
volts, depending on the location Of the
fault In the transformer,
1t may be assumed IN general that a
voltage Of eight hundred Or more will
force enough current to pass through
the body to cause death, II the con.
facts made are good, and II the cir
cult is an ordinary lighting or power
circuit. But, II person should be
subjected 10 current from an alter
mating machine Of very high frequency,
that is, where the reversals OF the d.
rection Of the current are extremely
rapid, as was the case In Tesla's expert.
ments, then there il no danger as the
current seems TO remain on the SUR.
face, and not to penetrate the body.
In al probability the majority OF
people who claim that they have been
tnocked down by recelginga severe
,leerlc s9ock fall by losing their bal.
nee, from the eiiectot tho sudden ana