BY
WILLIAM N. BULLARD, M.D.
MEDICO-LEGAL RELATIONS OF ELECTRICITY.
As the frequency of accidents caused by electricity is rapidly increasing, we have of late years been enabled to generalize in a manner never before possible in regard to their results, and although our present conclusions must be recognized as provisional and perhaps temporary—to be changed or modified in accordance with future knowledge—yet we have obtained a basis of fact on which we can securely rely. The general laws of injury and accident through electricity have been fairly well determined, although many of the details are not yet thoroughly worked out or understood. The advances of knowledge in this direction are so rapid that an article on this subject, if it deals too closely with details, is liable to become out of date almost before it has left the press. Like all large subjects when first made objects of general interest and investigation, and in regard to which we are on the threshold only of knowledge, the facts discoverable may lead us at any time in unexpected directions and open out new fields of thought and inquiry. We shall try to limit ourselves here, as far as possible, to proved facts, and leave questions doubtful or in dispute to be settled later; contenting ourselves merely with pointing them out and, perhaps, in some cases giving the facts on either side.
Electrical accidents and injuries may be divided into those which are caused by the atmospheric electricity—lightning proper, globes of fire, St. Elmo’s fire—and those produced through the agency of mechanical or artificial electricity—electrical machines, batteries, dynamos, etc. The effects caused by these different agents probably vary only in degree: the atmospheric electricity in the form of lightning, etc., being so much more powerful than the charges usually produced artificially as to cause some difference in the results.
RESULTS OF ACCIDENTS AND INJURIES FROM ELECTRICAL MACHINES AND CONDUCTORS.
Medical Electricity.—In the ordinary use of the mild forms of electricity employed for medical purposes, certain phenomena may at times occur, which, although not of any serious import or of long duration, may yet cause considerable inconvenience, pain, or discomfort to the patient or others, and may even be of some importance from a medico-legal point of view. We shall not enter here into the discussion of the proper methods of application of medical electricity, nor do more than point out that if these be not followed with care the patient may be not only not benefited, but made worse, and may even suffer considerable injury. The increase of pain caused by the improper application of certain currents is usually temporary and of minor consequence. But serious and lasting inflammations may be caused by the careless, ignorant, or injudicious use of the stronger currents internally, and metritis and peri-uterine inflammations have been not infrequently reported from the unskilled practice of the methods of Apostoli. These subjects, however, scarcely come under the scope of this article.