Brown Sequard made the following very curious experiment on this subject:—
He took the hearts away from five rabbits of the same kind, the same age, and about the same strength. He put one aside without touching it, and he submitted the four others to the passage of an electric current, of a different strength for each animal. Here are the different results obtained —
The first animal became rigid after ten hours, and its rigidity, which was excessively marked, lasted eight days. The rigidity of the four others was feebler, and lasted a shorter time in proportion to the strength of the electric current. Thus, the one which received the weakest current, became rigid at the end of seven hours, and this lasted six days. The one which received the strongest current became rigid in seven minutes, and its body softened after a quarter of an hour.
This experiment explains the absence, or the shortness in duration, of corpselike stiffness in subjects which have been subjected to the terrible discharge of lightning.
Animals are not only the frequent victims of lightning, but, as this experiment shows, they are still oftener the martyrs of science. Laboratories are sometimes transformed into small cemeteries, where lie poor guineapigs, frogs which have been quartered, and mutilated rabbits. But what is the ordinary lot of these last when science spares them? The chief point is not to let the innocent victims suffer.
Can we eat with impunity the flesh of animals which have been struck? Several people say Yes, many say No. Both are right.
Putting aside the question of the rapid putrefaction to which these bodies are nearly always subjected, the flesh of animals killed by fulguration has often been found unhealthy and uneatable.
A veterinary surgeon who was commissioned to examine the bodies of two cows and an ox which had been struck in a stable, declared that their flesh could not be eaten without danger.
On the other hand, Franklin recounts how some people ate fowls which had been killed by the electric spark—"this funny little lightning"—and cooked immediately after death. The flesh of these capons was excellent and particularly tender, and the illustrious inventor of lightning-conductors concluded by proposing that we should follow this proceeding in order to ensure our fresh meat being as clean as possible when served at table.
We think, however, that it is more prudent to sacrifice the meat which has been struck, as it has been proved that in certain cases the decomposition is very rapid.