QUESTION CORNER
Electric shock
PHOTO: K. MURALIKUMAR
How does the human body react to a severe electric shock?
Abhishek Bankalgi
Bangalore
The human body contains body fluid mainly consisting of water, which gets electrolysed on passage of electric current in the event of an electric shock.
This leads to other more complex electric effects in the body as follows:
When an electric current passes through a living tissue the nerves respond in a typical way that makes the muscular tissues contract and a twitching is noticed as was observed by the famous Italian scientist Luigi Galvani in the 1780s.
In fact, the symptom of such spasms has been recorded in more controlled experiments where a definite quantity of electric charge was deposited on the spinal cord of frogs and the frogs exhibited the same type of spasms in their muscles; more charge resulted in greater twitching of muscles.
In the human body also, the same effect takes place. In severe cases of such electric shock, the spasms can be so strong that the muscles of some critical organs like the heart can be thrown out of their characteristic rhythmic motion.
And the electric current can also disrupt the functioning of the brain. The combined effect can be fatal.
DR. H. K. SAHU
Senior Scientific Officer
Materials Science Division
Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research
Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu
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