In 1838, a violent storm broke near Nimegue, and several oxen were killed in the meadows and their bones were broken.
In the month of May, 1718, in the Marche de Priegnitz, eight sheep were struck. They could not be used as food, because all their bones had been broken as though in a mortar, and the fragments were intermingled in the flesh. These, however, remained intact.
We have seen in the preceding chapter that fulguration often leaves no particular sign on men who are struck. It is the same with animals. The electric fluid entirely absorbs the source of life and only leaves insignificant traces of its passage. Sometimes even we can find no exterior injury.
On July 7, 1779, near Hamburg, lightning killed two horses in their stable. They showed no exterior trace of a burn, though both had a rupture of the auricles.
In the month of September, 1787, at Ogenne, two cows and a heifer were struck in their stable; no exterior wound was to be found on their bodies.
Another observation is given by the Abbé Chapsal in his remarkable description of the effects of lightning. A pig fell dead, struck by a clap of thunder, and no indication could be found of the electric passage.
We see that lightning does not always make a great distinction between the blows which it inflicts on men and those which it inflicts on animals.
Sometimes, also, the corpses of beasts which are struck are completely incinerated. At the first sight, the body appears intact, but when you touch it, it falls to pieces.
At Clermont (Oise) on June 2, 1903, several animals were entirely carbonized in their stable.
We have also heard of animals being transported by the meteor a long way from the place of the catastrophe. Others have suffered from grave nervous troubles, following on the strokes of lightning which they have received. Sometimes partial or total paralysis results. Thus, a cow which had been struck by lightning, was knocked over, and remained a quarter of an hour motionless, after which it was seized with violent convulsions, then it got up quickly looking terrified.