Sometimes the victims are nearly asphyxiated by the fulminic effluvium, and only owe their preservation to the extreme care which is lavished on them.
Very often the bodies and the clothes of people who have been struck give forth a nauseous smell—generally similar to that of burning sulphur.
In the month of August, 1879, a woman who had been struck at Montoulieu, in the Champ Descubert quarter, had her skull perforated as though a big ball had passed through it, and her burnt clothes gave forth insupportable emanations.
Dr. Minonzio relates how three persons were wounded by lightning on board the Austrian frigate The Medée. "I remember," he says, "the sensation which was caused in the locality by the stench which came from the bodies and clothes of these people who were struck—a stench nearly as offensive as that of burnt sulphur mingled with empyreumatical oil."
One of the most frequent and good-natured effects of lightning on man is to shave his hair and beard, to scorch them, or even to depilate the whole body.
Generally the victim may consider himself lucky if he leaves a handful of hair as a ransom to the lightning, and escapes with a fright.
There is even a case given of a young girl of twenty who had her hair cut as though by a razor, without perceiving it or feeling the least shock.
On May 7, 1885, two men who were in a windmill were struck by lightning. They were both struck deaf, and the hair and beard and eyebrows of one were burnt. In addition to this, their clothes crumbled to the touch.
A man, who must have been very hairy, was struck by lightning near Aix. The electric current raised the hairs of his body in ridges from the breast to the feet, rolled them into pellets, and incrusted them deeply in the calf of the leg.
Very often the injury to the hair, instead of being spread all over the body, limits itself to certain places where it is thicker or damper on the body of a man, and more especially on that of a woman. Here are some curious examples.