1890.] MICROSCOPICAL JOUENAL. 181 



off, having been acting ten seconds ; electrodes were removed ; I 

 made tracheotomy and applied forced respiration wath the same instru- 

 ment with which I have saved five human lives. It was kept up for 

 half an hour, and at no time was there any heart response. 



I desire to state that this animal was placed under the best condition 

 known to medical science to live after the shock had been given. I made 

 this experiment not with any belief that the animal which had received 

 such a powerful electrical shock could be revived, but merely to satisfy 

 those who had been influenced by the ignorant statements, made in some 

 portions of the '• Kemmler enquiry," to the effect that animals which 

 had received a large dose of electricity might be revived if placed in the 

 ground for a period of time, until the electricity, said to have saturated 

 them, had been drawn from them by the moist earth. 



These experiments, as all the others I witnessed, presented no feature 

 of uncertainty ; no sound or cry was made by the animals, and as I had 

 formerly advocated the use of electricity as a death-dealing agent, I 

 could not but feel satisfied with the results. 



And now comes the question of the method of application of this 

 agent to the execution of a human being. At the time these experi- 

 ments were made, the electric-execution plant at Auburn was in a de- 

 cidedly chaotic state. Considerable labor had yet to be expended to 

 place it in satisfactory condition. 



THE KEMMLER CHAIR. 



No chair suitable, or accepted by those in authority for the purpose, 

 had been prepared. One illy adapted to the purpose was lying in the 

 vaults of the prison, known as the Harold P. Brown chair. As the ex- 

 ecution of Kemmler had been ordered by the courts, it was natural that 

 those in authority should feel the necessity of prompt action. Follow- 

 ing the above experiments, on the train returning home, I explained to 

 Gen. Austin Lathrop, Superintendent of State Prisons, my views relat- 

 ing to the feature of the chair to be used. At his request I subsequently 

 made drawings and specifications, and was requested (Letter January 

 i6, 1889) to have a chair made according to my views. I carried out 

 the idea I formerly expressed, viz : that the current should be made to 

 pass through the centres of function and intelligence in the brain, etc. 

 One electrode was placed over the cerebrum, the other against the spine 

 in the dorsal or lumbar region. 



The dissemination of the current with electrodes thus applied would 

 include the heart and produce the greatest density in neck, including 

 the region of the medulla oblongata. February 12, 1889, the chair was 

 shipped to the warden of Auburn Prison, Mr. Chas. F. Durston. 



At the request of Gen. Lathrop, I had kept the manufacture of tlie 

 chair a secret, so that no notice had appeared regarding it. The chair 

 was constructed in Buftalo under my direct supervision, and in its de- 

 tails diftered considerably from any previously suggested. Every /r<a!c- 

 if/c<7/ feature, even when used at Kemmler's execution, was original with 

 myself; it resembles an ordinary heavy oak arm-chair, with perforated 

 wooden seat, the cross-pieces at lower portion of back removed to give 

 room for spinal electrode. Two upright pieces at the back of chair 

 permit a third upright piece to move between them. This carries a 



