[Illustration: Monument to Minine and Pojarsky, Russia.]
Although the greatest number of deaths from electricity have occurred in
this country--more than one hundred--of which twenty-two occurred in
this city, yet other countries have not been without such "accidents,"
as has been erroneously stated by experts in the employ of the companies
interested in the deadly high-voltage currents, and as the subjoined
list, compiled by C.F. Heinrichs, the electrical expert, shows. The list
is by no means exhaustive. Many European newspapers contain articles
advising stringent measures to stop the causes of those accidents and
the use of currents of electricity above six hundred volts.
Following is a list of victims of electricity in Europe:
In February, 1880, Mr. Bruno, the euphonium player at the Holte Theatre
in Ashton, near Birmingham, touched the conductors of a two-light
electric plant and received a shock which rendered him insensible, and
he died within forty minutes.
In October, 1880, the stoker of the yacht Livadia, which was lying in
the Thames, near London, was ordered to adjust one of the Jablochkoff
candles. He accidently touched the terminals of the lamp, and instantly
fell down dead. The difference of potential at the lamp terminals was
only fifty volts, but it was admitted at the time that the wires must
have been in contact with the iron plate upon which the stoker stood,
and that alternating currents of higher voltages from the main source
caused the death, because with fifty volts an electrical energy of only
.05 Watts would have been expended on the resistances of the skin and
the vital organs of the victim.
In 1880, a workman touched a wire of a Brush installation at the
Hatfield House, the residence of the Marquis of Salisbury, and fell down
dead. The current was under eight hundred volts.
In July, 1882, on the occasion of a fire in Brighton, England, a fireman
took hold of a fire-escape which was in contact with the wire of a Brush
machine. He received a shock which doubled him up and disabled him for a
long time.
August, 1883, an official of the Hungarian railway in Pesth was killed
on touching a wire of a "Ganz" alternating-current generator.
August, 1884, Emile Martin and Joseph Kenarec were killed in Paris on
attempting to climb over the fence of the garden of the Tuileries. Both
victims came in contact with the wires of a Siemen twelve-light
alternating-current generator. The difference of potential between the
place of the accident and the ground was 250 volts. The current which
would pass that way caused the deaths, and burns upon the hands, cheek
and ear of the victims.
September, 1884, Henry Pink, an attendant at the Health exhibition in
London, was killed on touching a Hochhausen dynamo of 1,000-volt
capacity. At that time all electricians agreed that no currents over 600
volts should be allowed.
November, 1884, an engine-driver, William Moore, was instantly killed on
touching the wire of an arc-light plant, at Messrs. Bolcknow, Vaughan &
Co.'s, works, at Middleborough, England. The fatality was admitted to be
due to the high-voltage current and bad insulation.
January, 1887, Richard Grove noted that his employer's store, in Regent
Street, London, was set on fire by electric-light wires. He rushed up on
the roof of the building to cut the wires. He received a shock and fell
off the roof, dead. Secondary currents of Goulard & Gibb's converters
(Westinghouse system) were held responsible for the fatality by
electricians.
December, 1887, James Williams was killed by an electric-light shock at
the Pontyminister tin-plate works at Bisca, in Wales.
June, 1888, in Terri, Italy, a tinner was killed on the roof of a
building on touching an alternating-current circuit.
October. 1888, in Spain, at the Valladolid electric-light station a
carpenter took hold of a wire of an alternating-current generator and
could not let go. An attendant tried to pull the man off the wire and
both were killed by the currents.
November, 1888, E.A. Richardson, employed at the Consett iron works, in
the county of Durnham, England, received a shock from an arc-light
plant, from the effects of which he died two hours later.
December, 1888, in Turin, Italy, an employé of an electric-light company
was killed by alternating currents.
June, 1889, John Connelly, an employé of the Siemens Electric-Light
Company, near London, was killed by an alternating current of 1,000
volts.
Speaking of recent cases here, Mr. Heinrichs said:
"It is to be regretted that some of our electrical experts of so-called
standing, not only assist in keeping the facts from the public, but tell
when under oath only half the truth, as was said a short time ago in a
conservative electrical publication in London. One of these experts had
to admit in the Kemmler investigations that all of his knowledge as to
the harmless nature of the Westinghouse current was obtained by him from
observations made upon himself and friends receiving alternating
currents from an electro-medical apparatus. And the various
susceptibilities of the different living organisms to electric
influences he judged from the manner in which some of his friends
dropped the metal handles. Had this expert made any calculations of the
electrical energy expended in these trivial experiments he would have
found that the whole electrical energy expended upon the living organism
of any of his friends was below one-fifty thousandth of an electrical
horse-power per second, and the difference of susceptibilities of any of
his friends was infinitesimal, and the difference of the electrical
energy between the minimum and maximum charges less than one-two hundred
thousandths of an electrical horse-power. It is a well-established fact
that alternating currents of an electrical energy of one-four-thousandth
part of an electrical horse-power per second, if expended upon the vital
organs, the nerves and muscles, of any human being, will cause
instantaneous death in every case."--_New York Commercial Advertiser_.
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