1890.] MICEOSCOPICAL JOCTENAL. 185 



"In spite of the strong general opinion against my position, I had been 

 able, until this last series of experiments was undertaken, to believe that 

 there was no important difference between the fatal powers of continu- 

 ous and alternating currents (when either effective voltage or effective 

 current was considered), that the modes of action were identical, and 

 that, therefore, I had only one sort of death to account for. This hap- 

 pened because, when I had originally determined that continuous and 

 alternating currents were of equal power under ether, and that contin- 

 uous currents were not influenced by ether, I had falsely inferred that 

 the eflect of alternating currents was equally independent." 



The experiments discussed in the New York Medical Journal^ of 

 February 23, 1890, seemed to me to show clearly enough that, under 

 the conditions there noted, death was not caused by any sort of tissue 

 lesion outside the heart. But these ether experiments proved that, with 

 normal dosfs and alternating: currents, no lesion whatever can be taken 

 into account. For under ether dogs can tolerate, without injury, currents 

 three or four times as great as have ever been survived without ether. 

 And it would be absurd to suppose that ether could protect any tissue 

 against physical lesion from alternating currents so as to reduce their 

 power exactly to that of continuous currents, and yet have no effect on 

 the action of continuous currents. 



In one of these experiments under ether, 1.05 ampere alternating cur- 

 rent was passed through a dog from forehead to thigh (after four other 

 applications gradually approaching this in strength) . This is just three 

 times as strong as the strongest current that I have yet used in killing a 

 dog without ether. It is four and three-quarters times as strong as any 

 dog has survived without ether. Yet one hour after this surprisingly large 

 dose, the animal, being fairly recovered from the ether, the thing ab- 

 normal in his condition was a mild, general, rhythmical tremor. At 

 this time also, after a little coaxing, he walked across the room and 

 drank some milk. The next morning the dog presented no sign of 

 having been misused ; but in disposition and demeanor was entirely 

 natural. He so remained until the fifth day after the large dose, when 

 he succumbed to .245 amperes, after these other doses gradually ap- 

 proaching this strength, or less than one-quarter of the current survived 

 under ether. 



Dr. Tatum's paper, February 22, 1890, No. N. T. Medical Journal^ 

 regarding some of his experiments, says : Whereas a current of one 

 ampere, passed in either direction for one full second between the head 

 and thigh of a dog weighing not more than sixty pounds, and repre- 

 senting in the neck a current-density of as much as a ten-thousandth of 

 one ampere to the square millimeter section, invariably causes imme- 

 diate and permanent arrest of both heart and respiration ; yet a current 

 of two and a half amperes has been passed for several seconds from one 

 hind leg to the other of a much smaller dog, and representing a current- 

 density ten times as great as that just mentioned, and the dog has im- 

 mediately afterward risen to his feet and walked away. 



From this and the negative results w^hich the microscope gives in ex- 

 amination of the heart of animals killed by electricity, we may say with 

 the doctor that somatic death may be caused without serious lesion of 

 either substance or functions of muscles or nerves, but also that, when 

 such lesions do occur, they are in no sense the cause, direct or indirect, 



