80 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and Mrs. B , of New Hampshire, this power was first discovered 

 during the imminence of a thunder-storm. Human electrometers 

 are sometimes met with. A young man named William Chap- 

 man, of Providence, R. I., was stunned by the shock of a stroke 

 of lightning which struck his father's house. The current passed 

 through his body and went out at his right heel, which was pain- 

 ful for some time afterward. On every occasion of a thunder- 

 storm since then he feels, hours before the time, a tingling pain 

 in the heel. Young Chapman would be a valuable acquisition to 

 the Signal Service as a portable electrometer, and, if he can do as 

 well as he is said to have done on certain occasions, he would be 

 ahead of any device that science has yet lighted upon to foretell 

 an electrical storm. 



A remarkable instance of the salutary effects of atmospheric 

 electricity on the human body is told by the Wolverhampton cor- 

 respondent of the London " Times." He states that during a 

 thunder-storm a collier named Bates, who had lost his sight 

 through an accident, was being led home, when a flash of light- 

 ning was reflected on the spectacles he was wearing to conceal 

 his disfigurement. After the peal of thunder which followed he 

 complained of pain in his head. The next moment, to his sur- 

 prise, he found that he had regained possession of his eye-sight. 

 The occurrence caused considerable excitement in the locality. 



Since the date of Galvani's discovery, there have been many 

 persons sufficiently bold to assert the identity of electricity and 

 life. Even before that period, the observance of electric phenomena 

 in man had been a subject of popular interest. In his " History 

 of Electricity," Priestley relates that drawing a spark from a liv- 

 ing body " makes a principal part of the diversion of gentlemen 

 and ladies who come to see experiments in electricity." Doubt- 

 less the diversion was not lessened by the fact that the " electrical 

 kiss " was a favorite form of the experiment. 



The excitement in Paris, Edinburgh, and other cities, follow- 

 ing the application of galvanic electricity to dead bodies, was of a 

 very startling character, many supposing that the secrets of life 

 were about to be yielded up by this wonderful fluid. Bonaparte, 

 it is said, after witnessing experiments in voltaic electrolysis, 

 remarked to his physician, Corvisart : " Here, doctor, is the image 

 of life ; the vertebral column is the pile, the liver is the negative, 

 the bladder the positive pole." Though much has been discov- 

 ered since that statement was made, but a modicum of the truth 

 probably is known. 



Perhaps the developed man of the future, in his physiological 

 relations to the universe, may exemplify the magnet, whose forces 

 are exerted constantly as received without seeming detriment to 

 its substance. 



