160 NATURE AND LIFE. 
light. Whether this be true or not, while the sky is clear 
this fluid has no visible effect on human beings; but, when- 
ever it accumulates in the clouds, and gives rise to storms, | 
it produces effects that are the most manifest proofs of the 
influence exerted over life by electricity. Persons killed by 
lightning present a great variety of appearances. Some- 
times one struck by lightning is killed outright on the spot, 
the body remaining standing or sitting; sometimes, on the 
contrary, it is thrown to a great distance. Sometimes the 
flash tears off and destroys the victim’s dress, leaving the 
body untouched, and sometimes the reverse is the case. 
In some instances the destruction is frightful, the heart is 
torn apart and the bones crushed; in others the organs are 
observed entirely uninjured. In certain cases flaccidity of 
the limbs occurs, softening of the bones, collapse of the 
lungs; in others, contractions and rigidity are remarked. 
Sometimes the body of the person struck decomposes 
rapidly, but at times it resists decay. Lightning, which 
shatters trees, and overturns walls, seems not to produce 
mutilations in animals at all readily. - When the stroke 
does not produce death, it creates at least serious disturb- 
ances—sometimes temporary, but oftener beyond remedy. 
Besides the burns and various eruptions noticed on the 
skin of those struck by lightning, they often suffer, very 
curiously, a complete loss of hair; they are affected with 
paralysis, dumbness, deafness, amaurosis, or imbecility. 
In brief, the destructive attacks of atmospheric electricity 
touch all the functions of the nervous system. 
The action of electric fishes may be likened to that of 
lightning, in being independent of our intention. The 
shocks of the gymnotus are particularly formidable. Alex- 
ander Humboldt relates that, having put both his feet on 
one of these fish, just taken from the water, he experienced 
so violent a shock that he felt pains in all his joints the 
rest of the day. These shocks throw the strongest ani- 

