Salt Lake Telegram | 1932-09-08 | Page 6 | Daily Health Service

Daily Health Service I Editors Editor's note This is the first o of two articles by Dr FishbeIn on electrical elec accidents The second will be printed tomorrow S S S By DR MORRIS FISHBEIN Editor Journal of the American Medical Medi ledl cal Association and of the the Health Magazine 1 The Leyden Leiden jar was discovered in Holland and Benjamin Franklin flew his kite and drew down lightning from the sky well before the beginning of the nineteenth century Electrical applications ap ap- ap w were re made also as early as 1754 with a view to the treatment of paralysis There is IS recorded in the Philosophical cal Transactions published in England in 1754 the case of ot a girl who was paralyzed by electrical shock The first two accidents definitely recorded in England occurred in 1879 when a stage carpenter was killed by an m alternating alter nat lg current of ot Q volts and in 1880 1860 when h n a member of an orchestra in ina a theater in in Birmingham was vas killed by a short circuit Dr MacDonald Critchley finds that there are 2000 injuries annually from rom electricity in each of the big countries of t Europe except Germany in which the average is about OO In ed cd States the average death rate isone is isone isone one per 1200 p per r year In Germany it is only 06 per and in England and Wales jt t is is' only 07 per Some ome investigators arc inclined to attribute the low death rate in England i d to the backwardness of the electrical industry in that coun coun- try The exact mode of death in cases of fatal electrical accidents is not yet clear Many feel that it is due to paralysis pa of that pc portion of ot the brain which is responsible for breathing and certainly it is possible to dem demonstrate demon n. n strate changes es in the brain after electrical elec shock The nervous system is a poor conductor con con- ductor of ot electricity and is therefore often severely injured by the passing of ot electric currents Sometimes electrical injury to the central nervous system may not produce produce pro pro- duce immediate nedi te serious effects but be followed later by progressive disorders disorders dis db dis- dis orders orders' that are serious r us