1879J 
Painless Death. 
309 
impression which revealed the ball remained upon the eye. 
If, then, a rifle-bullet passing through the brain move with 
sufficient rapidity to destroy life without the interposition of 
sensation, much more is a flash of lightning competent to 
produce this effect. We have well-authenticated cases of 
people being struck by lightning who, on recovery, had no 
recollection of pain. 
The Rev. Dr. Bartol, who was lately nearly killed by 
lightning, expressed the belief that if the stroke proved fatal 
it must produce the most agreeable mode of death ; but to 
be stunned, as he was, is very unpleasant. As soon as con- 
sciousness returned he experienced a terrible sense of 
oppression, and an irresistible weight seemed passing 
through him, while his mind was dazed so that for a while 
it seemed he had suddenly been precipitated into wonder- 
land. His recovery was attended by headache, continued 
for a week. 
The following case is described by Hemmer ; — On June 30, 
1788, a soldier in the neighbourhood of Mannheim, being 
overtaken by rain, stationed himself under a tree, beneath 
which a woman had previously taken shelter. He looked 
upward to see whether the branches were thick enough to 
shed the rain, and in doing so was struck by lightning, and 
fell senseless to the earth. The woman at his side expe- 
rienced the shock in her foot, but was not struck down. 
Some hours afterward the man recovered, but remembered 
nothing about what had occurred, save the faCt of his 
looking up at the branches. This was his last adt of con- 
sciousness, and he passed into the unconscious condition 
without pain. The visible marks of a lightning stroke are 
usually insignificant, the hair being sometimes burnt, slight 
wounds occasioned, or a red streak marking the track of the 
eledtric discharge over the skin. 
Prof. Tyndall relates — standing in the presence of an 
audience, about to lecture — that he accidentally touched a 
wire leading from a charged battery of fifteen large Leyden 
jars, and the current passed through his body. He says life 
was absolutely blotted out for a very sensible interval, 
without a trace of pain. In another second or so conscious- 
ness returned. He saw himself in the presence of the 
audience and in contadt with the apparatus, and immediately 
realised that he had received the battery discharge. The 
intellectual consciousness of his position was restored with 
exceeding rapidity, but not so the optical consciousness. To 
prevent the audience being alarmed he stated that it had 
