1890.] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 183 



lungs by clirt'usion, diaphragm, and spinal cord, the effect of the pow- 

 erful current of a dynamo upon a culprit may be appreciated. 



In sequential order the next experiment took place at Auburn, New 

 York, during the week beginning April zS, when Kemmler had been 

 sentenced to die according to the new law. The witnesses to this pro- 

 posed execution, as is well known, through legal processes, did not sec 

 Kemmler die. There was a natural desire, however, to see the power 

 of the apparatus applied to an animal, and Mr. C. F. Durston procured 

 a good-sized calf for this purpose. I took entire charge of this experi- 

 ment, and knew from experience that even with the assistants the at- 

 tachment of electrodes which were removed from the Kemmler chair 

 weighted down with a long heavy wire, to the head and spine of a calf 

 is no easy task. The calf was overcome and quietly lying on the floor 

 when Mr. Durston (at my request) turned on the current of about 

 1, 200 volts e. m. f. Instant rigidity of the animal resulted. In ten 

 seconds I gave the signal to turn otl' the current, the rigidity passed 

 away : — the animal had been instantly killed. Previous to the applica- 

 tion of the current I secured some blood from the animal ; about an 

 hour after I also took some. Microscopical examination revealed that 

 the corpuscles taken subsequent to death were markedly crenated ; 

 which, I believe, on comparison with blood from a calf killed by a 

 butcher, however, to be a post mortem change. 



As by experiments on the lower animals, we can only arrive at con- 

 clusions regarding the death -dealing influence of electricity, I wish 

 further to refer to the work of Dr. Edward Tatum, of Yonkers, N. Y., 

 made at the University of Pennsylvania. In a letter he states that 

 dogs were the only animals used. 



It is understood, of course, that his results are, in strictness, only 

 applicable to dogs. 



" These results are, in brief, that with currents of between one and 

 three amperes the heart is distinctly stepped before the current has pro- 

 duced any other discoverable lesion ; and this even after the division in 

 the neck of both pneumogastrics, or the profound poisoning of their 

 terminations in the heart substance by curare or atropine ; or, even 

 after the chest wall has been opened. The stronger the current the 

 more distinctly and independently is the separate action of the heart 

 recognizable, and the more unavoidalile is the conclusion that the re- 

 sult flows from a direct action on the heart substance of that portion of 

 the current which actually traverses it. 



"■ Currents of less strength than about one ampere may require from 

 one to many seconds before the heart is arrested. As this iwterval is 

 lengthened the interference with pulmonary respiration assumes greater 

 importance, until a point is reached when it maybe said that death re- 

 sults from simple suflbcation. These results were obtained with the 

 sort of currents that are used commercially, namely, continuous cur- 

 rents as well as very rapidly alternating ones. 



'' The strongest current that I have applied to a dog was about three 

 amperes, requiring a pressure, with carefully applied electrodes, of 

 between 900 to i ,000 volts, and consuming al^out four actual liorse- 

 power. Such a current has killed when continued for only one-eighth 

 part of a second. The maximum \olumc of mixed gases that this cur- 



