ELECTROCUTION IN HORSES. 
411 
ORIGINAL ARTICLES. 
ELECTROCUTION IN HORSES. 
EXTRACTED FROM THE REPORT OF L. ROSSIGNOL,* BY 
PROF. A. EIAUTARD. 
These experiments were divided into two series and carried 
out at one of the plants of electricity in the suburbs of Paris, 
before a large body of veterinarians. 
The director of the plant had arranged a system of short 
cast-iron poles united two by two by wires going to the power¬ 
ful current furnished by the dynamos of the plant. These 
poles were encased at equal distances into wood beams about 
i metre 20 apart. The wires were connected with a commu¬ 
tator and a voltmeter, allowing perfect measurement of the dis¬ 
tributed current. The poles of one wood beam represented the 
negative, those of the other the positive electric pole. 
FIRST EXPERIMENT. 
Two horses had been provided to be experimented upon. 
The first was an aged roan gelding, which had chronic laminitis 
and carried leather soles on his front feet. He was placed in 
such a manner that one hind foot rested well on one of the poles. 
550 volts were made to pass through the arranged receivers. 
But the horse received only a weak shock, jumped forwards 
and ran away from the action of the current. 
Two new attempts made in the same conditions were fol¬ 
lowed by the same result ; at the third, however, a spark of 
electricity was seen at the iron pole where the contact had 
taken place. The animal suddenly flexed his fore legs, turned 
two or three times over and then resumed its standing position. 
For a few minutes he was much excited, had violent muscular 
tremblings, strong beatings of the heart, 51 pulsations to a 
minute. Then quite rapidly everything passed off. 
*( Presse Veterinaire , March and April, 1901.) 
