The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-26
FREAKS OF LIGHTNING.
Instances Where 1t Has Ripped Off
 Clothing and Broken Bones.
From the Lancet.

From the Lancet.
 Perhaps the most curious accompani- ment of lightning shock is the strip ping off of the clothes. This appears to be very common A writer describes a case In which man was struck by light ming while standing by a willow tree. Inn mediately afterward his boots were found at the foot of the tree and the man was lying on his back two yards off, abso- lutely naked except for part of the left arm of his flannel vest.
 He was conscious, but much burned, and his left leg was broken. The field around was strewn with fragments of the clothes, torn from top to bottom. The boots were partly torn.
 F1ammarion mentions a case in 1898 in which three women were standing around a reaping machine, .-when one of them was struck by lightning and killed; the two others were unnjured, but they were stripped absolutely naked, even their boots being removed.
 It has been suggested that the stripping of the clothes is caused by the rapid for nation of steam. When trees are struck the bark is frequently torn off, probably by the electricity passing between it and the wood. It is not unreasonable to inn agine that the same explanation applies to the removal of clothes.
 Little less remarkable is the shaving eff feet which is sometimes seen. Two men who were in a windmill were struck by lightning. They were both rendered deaf and the hair, beard and eyebrows of one were burned A woman who was struck had the hair of her head completely re- moved. Sometimes the hair returns and sometimes the part Is permanently bald In a case at Krugersdorp bones were broken, and a few other similar cases are recorded. Probably in some of them the fracture was caused by the fall. Flammaron mentions a case in which eight sheep were struck; all their bones had been broken as though crushed in a mortar The fall would not account for this.
 When an electric current is passed through a number of persons holding hands 1t is generally felt most by those at the end of the chain, and several cases have been recorded in which only those which may be called the terminals of a series of animals are damaged. Five horses in line received a stroke of light ming; only the first and last were killed. On another occasion five horses In stable were struck; the only animal to escape death was the horse in the center.
 Several remarkable accounts have been recorded where alternate animals of series have been killed. During a storm in 1901 lightning entered stable where there were 20 cows and it killed 10 of them. The first, the third and so were killed, while the second fourth and so on survived. It is certainly difficult to ex- plain cases such as these but it would be unwise to deny the possibility of their occurrence.
 Cases of complete incineration are not rare, but more remarkable are the in- stances in which the body of a man killed by lightning has appeared to be un- altered, but when touched it has crumbled to dust. In 1888 three soldiers took shel- ter under a tree and q stroke of lightning killed them all but they all remained standing, and even their clothes appeared~ to be intact, but when touched the bodies fell into heap of ashes.
 The lower animals appear to be more liable to be struck than human beings A whole herd of cattle or sheep may be de- stroyed by lightning. Two hundred and sixteen sheep out of 2SS have been struck, and on one occasion 20O0 goats said to have been destroyed at one time. In a storm cattle and sheep herd together, and this fact probably increases their danger
 Representations of surrounding objects are sometimes said to have been imprint ed on the victims skins by lightning discharge. Nearly always the picture is that of a tree and may be merely branching mark made by the electricity.