The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1898-03-05
DEATH BY LIGHTNING.
Extraordinary Action of Flash on
a Mans Body.
From the London Lancet, Feb. ).

From the London Lancet, Feb. }.
The effects of lightning as it passes to
earth through the body of man vary
within an astonishingly wide range 1t
sometimes happens that person is killed
outright without any symptoms or sign OF
injury. 1t may be that death is preceded
by collapse, paralysis, or convulsion. Usu-
aily there are marks where the current has
entered or left the body, or clothes may
have been scorched, or hemorrhages may
have occurred, and more than one case
has been recorded where boots have been
torn off the feet and nails driven out Of the
soles of the boots. Seldom does it happen
that lightning leaves such appalling evil
dence of its transit as that disclosed at an
inquest held at Hulford House, near Guild
ford, on Saturday last The evidence
showed that on the previous Wednesday
there had been a single fash of lightning
and clap of thunder, and about half an
hour afterward Major Jameson was found
living on his face in field quite dead.
Around him. in radius of several yards,
were MS clothes and boots, which had been
| torn and scattered about in an extraordl-
nary manner The lightning appears to
have struck him on the right side of the
head, tearing his cap to pieces and burn
ing his hair off 1t then passed inside his
collar down the front of his body and both
legs into his boots, which were torn to
pieces, and then passed into the ground,
making hole about eighteen inches in
circumference and three inches deep. His
collar was torn to pieces, the front of his
shirt was rent into ribbons, the jacket and
undervest were literally torn to shreds, and
the knickerbockers he was wearing were
stripped from him and scattered on the
ground. His stockings and CATERS were
similarly torn in pieces, and on the boots
the lightning had remarkable effect.
| They were burst open, some Of the brass
evelet holes were torn out, nails were forced
out, and the soles torn off. The skin had
been torn off the chest, and the right leg
was torn and blackened; blood was issuing
from the mouth and right ear. In con-
nection with this fatality two circumstances
of a more or less unusual kind may be
noticed. There is, first, the sing lie light
ming flash, neither preceded nor followed
by others in the neighborhood, and, sec
ondly. the fact that the person who was
struck was in the open. The latter
comparatively seldom happens, perhaps
because shelter is instinctively and perhaps
unwisely sought Here there was no warn
ing and no time for this, and 50, without
any neighboring object at hand to subdi-
vide and share the discharge, the latter
had only one route to earth-the body of
its victim The wet or dry condition of
the clothes is an important point in such
cases. 1t often happens that in persons
exposed to a thunderstorm the clothes are
wet and therefore afford Il comparatively
easy passage to any electric current. In
the case above detailed the clothes were
presumably dry, and therefore bad electric
conductors, and the destructive effect of
the lightning would be in proportion to the
resistance encountered in transit,