Chemical Science, S8J 



of the latter will be immediately destroyed, and an effect, in part 

 analogous to that of a positive discharge of electricity, will be pro- 

 duced. Some of the most serious accidents which occur, from, light- 

 ning are supposed to be produced in this way, not by the mere 

 disturbance of electricity in a person only, but of the electricity of 

 those bodies with which the person may be in contact, and to which 

 he accidentally serves as a conductor. 



On the 24th of Sept. 1826, at the moment when the lip;htning 



struck the ground, at the farm of Gali, near Versailles, M. B 



was violently affected by a returninp: stroke, at the distance of half 

 a league from the place. The following are the circumstances of 

 the case : — A violent storm occurred at Versailles and the neigh- 

 bouring parts, at half past nine o'clock. M. B., aged seventy-two 

 years, was passing the Rue Dauphine, at a little distance from the 

 church of Notre Dame, when one of those whirlwinds so common 

 in the neighbourhood of large buildings, obliged him to turn round. 

 He was then close to the party-wall of the houses 13 and 14, his 

 right side being at a small distance from it. A metal water-pipe 

 was fixed up the front of the house in this place, bringing the rain 

 from the roof to the level of the pavement. In this position M. B. 

 felt a commotion, which he describes as if all the right side of his 

 body was roughly thrown towards the left, feeling, at the same 

 time, much oppression, and vertigo, resembling that of drunkenness. 

 The immediate effects were, difficulty of motion in all the left side, 

 and a disturbed respiration ; and it was with much difficulty, and 

 only by resting frequently, that M. B. could reach the house 

 of a neighbouring friend. It was there observed, that the tongue 

 was embarrassed in its motions as well as the left side, but by the aid 

 of attention the agitation of the mind was calmed ; the night passed 

 moderately, and the next morning all was nearly in its ordinary 

 state. In the evening, however, at the hour when the circumstance 

 occurred, all the symptoms returned, and the same results occurred 

 daily until the end of the week, when a physician was consulted. 

 He immediately recognised the symptoms of compression on the 

 brain and spinal-marrow, from which had resulted an incomplete 

 paralysis of the tongue and the left arm and leg. This speedily 

 gave way under the hands of the physician, but the periodical 

 returns occurred until the cure was completed. 



It would be difficult to prove the identity of the electric discharge 

 which fired the farm of Gali, and struck M. B., but the latter cannot 

 ■be attributed to a direct stroke ; for at the moment when it hap- 

 pened, the intervals between the lightning and thunder were such 

 as to shew that the storm was not over Versailles. By a coinci- 

 dence of circumstances, M. Demonfcrrand, who describes the case, 

 was in the house No. 15, the whole of the evening, in an apart- 

 ment contiguous to the metal-pipe which appears to have served 

 as a conductor for the electricity, but neither he nor any other per- 

 son in the house felt the slightest disturbance. In the op})osite 

 house was a person in a bad state of healtli, and therefore, perhaps, 



