14 HISTORY OF ELECTRICITY. 



M. Dufay and in himself." The drawing of a spark 

 from the human body was practised in various 

 forms, one of which was familiarly known as the 

 "electrical kiss." Other exhibitions of electrical 

 light were the electrical star, electrical rain, and 

 the like. 



As electricians determined more exactly the 

 conditions of electrical action, they succeeded in 

 rendering more intense those sudden actions which 

 the spark accompanies, and thus produced the 

 electric shock. This was especially done in the 

 Leyden phial. This apparatus received its name, 

 while the discovery of its property was attributed 

 to Cunseus, a native of Leyden, who, in 1746, hand- 

 ling a vessel containing water in communication 

 with the electrical machine, and happening thus to 

 bring the inside and the outside into connexion, 

 received a sudden shock in his arms and breast. It 

 appears, however 8 , that a shock had been received 

 under nearly the same circumstances in 1745, by 

 Von Kleist, a German prelate, at Camin, in Pome- 

 rania. The strangeness of this occurrence, and the 

 suddeness of the blow, much exaggerated the esti- 

 mate which men formed of its force. Muschen- 

 broek, after taking one shock, declared he would 

 not take a second for the kingdom of France; 

 though Boze, with a more magnanimous spirit, 

 wished 9 that he might die by such a stroke, and 

 have the circumstances of the experiment recorded 

 8 Fischer, v. 490. 9 p. 84. 



