If the skin and clothes be wet, the resistance to the current is lessened and it passes more readily into the body. In the same way, if a person stands in close relation to a good conductor and places his hand on one wire of a high-tension electric circuit, he will receive a much more severe shock than if not connected with such conductor. Thus a person standing in a pool of water (water is a good conductor), and more strongly if standing on the metallic rail of a railway track, and touching one wire of an electric circuit with one hand, receives a much stronger shock than if he were standing on dry land, or if his boots were rubber or he was otherwise insulated.
The accidents most frequent in practice are those in which the current has been partially diverted from its original course and the person has not entered fully into the circuit. In such cases it is not usually possible to estimate accurately or even approximately the amount of current which the person has received. No calculations can, therefore, be based on these accidents. Again, we find that a person may be seriously or even fatally injured by a current which another person seems to bear with impunity.
D’Arsonval in 1887, in France, advised 500 volts as the maximum for the continuous current and 60 volts as the maximum for the alternating current which might be employed without special permission.
Our only accurate knowledge in regard to fatal currents comes from the experience derived from electrocutions. From these it appears that an alternating current of 1,500 volts is deadly if it passes through the body for more than a few seconds and if the contact is perfect.
Death.—Death may ensue immediately as the result of an electric shock without any evident preliminary symptoms, or it may occur later, either as the direct result of the shock or as the consequence of the exhaustion produced by the burns and other injuries, or directly from the injuries themselves. If death does not occur immediately and if appropriate means of aid are at hand, the sufferer usually survives and the effect of the electric shock gradually passes away. The danger after this arises from the burns and other injuries, and almost all the deaths not immediate are the results of these.
ELECTROCUTION.
Electricity has been adopted in the State of New York as the agent for the execution of condemned criminals. This has given rise to much discussion as to what form of current were the best adapted for this purpose and as to what amount were required to produce death at once and painlessly. These questions may now be regarded as practically settled, at least so far as regards the purposes mentioned, and we shall only refer incidentally to the discussions and their results.
Early in 1890 a committee consisting of Dr. Carlos F. MacDonald, Dr. A. D. Rockwell, and Prof. L. H. Landy made a report to the superintendent of prisons at Albany in regard to the efficiency of the electrical appliances and dynamos placed in the State prisons of Sing Sing, Auburn, and Clinton. This report gave details of various experiments made on animals to determine the amount of current and the time required to produce a fatal result.
On the 6th of August, 1890, occurred the first electrocution, that of William Kemmler, alias John Hart, at Auburn Prison. Dr. MacDonald in his official report to the governor in relation to this says: “It is confidently believed that when all the facts in the case are rightly understood the first execution by electricity will be regarded as a successful experiment. As might have been expected at the first execution by this method, there were certain defects of a minor character in the arrangement and operation of the apparatus. But in spite of these defects the important fact remains that unconsciousness was instantly effected and death was painless.”
The efficiency, rapidity, and painlessness of this form of execution have been confirmed by the later experiences. Up to the present date (May 26th, 1892) eight condemned criminals have been executed in the State of New York. Apparently all the officials who are intrusted with the care and inspection of this subject seem satisfied that this is, on the whole, the wisest, easiest, and most effective form of death thus far practised among civilized nations. The Medico-Legal Journal of New York, in printing the official report of the recent executions of four men made by Drs. C. F. MacDonald and S. B. Ward to the warden of Sing Sing Prison, states that it furnishes “indisputable evidence of the fact (1) that the deaths were painless and the victims unconscious from the instant of contact; (2) that they were certain and unattended with any of the revolting scenes so frequently witnessed at the scaffold; (3) that the method is humane so far as inflicting physical pain or suffering, and from all sides considered infinitely preferable to the death by hanging; and that so long as capital punishment for murder exists in New York, we need not desire to change the method of punishment.” These claims would seem to be thus far substantiated.