209 



II. General Result of Experiments on adult Dogs. 



Galvanized limb. Limb not galvanized. 



Duration of irritability 12 to 25 minutes 140 to 550 minutes. 

 Duration of cad. rigid. 3 to 16 hours 2 to 21 days. 



Putref. much advanced . within 30 hours only after several days. 



In experimenting on the whole body of an animal I have obtained 

 the most striking results. I will only mention here the following ex- 

 periments. Five vigorous male adult guinea-pigs were asphyxiated 

 by the application of a ligature round the trachea, and four of them 

 were galvanized immediately, the first with a very powerful electro- 

 magnetic machine, the second with a weaker one, the third with a 

 still weaker one, and the fourth by only a slight galvanic current ; 

 the fifth animal was not galvanized. In the four galvanized animals 

 the conductors were applied one to the mouth, the other to the anus. 



Durat. of irrit. Rigid, completed. Durat. of rigid. 



1st .... 4 mins. 7 mins. 15 mins. 



2nd .... 40 mins. 60 mins. nearly 1,200 mins. (20 hrs.) 



3rd 90 mins. 120 mins. nearly 3,600 mins. (3 days) 



4th 330 mins. 420 mins. nearly 8, 600 mins. (6 days) 



5th .... 500 mins. 600 mins. nearly 11, 500 mins. (8 days) 



As regards putrefaction, it already appeared in the first animal 

 during the first hour after death, and was much advanced the next 

 day ; its progress was slower in the four others, and successively 

 glower in each as compared with the preceding one in the series. 

 Considering that the power of lightning may be vastly greater than 

 that of our galvanic machines, we can easily understand that when 

 lightning strikes a man or an animal in the proper place, it must pro- 

 duce a much greater effect than galvanism, reducing the duration of 

 irritability to a fraction of a second, and that of cadaveric rigidity in 

 a corresponding degree, so that no trace of it remains a few minutes 

 after death, and in like manner hastening the access of the final pro- 

 cess of putrefaction. 



The results of the application of galvanism either to separate limbs 

 or to the whole body of animals, appear thus to show that when 

 lightning kills without leaving any evident alteration adequate to cause 

 death, without the subsequent appearance of cadaveric rigidity, but 

 with early and rapid putrefaction, the mode of action of lightning 



