Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!amdahl!pyramid!prls!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!johnmill
From: johnmill@mmintl.UUCP (John Miller)
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.electronics
Subject: Re: electric sleep
Message-ID: <2869@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: 9 Jun 88 19:28:50 GMT
References: <22@<1801> <21500051@uiucdcsm> <2548@kitty.UUCP> <1687@sigma.UUCP>
Reply-To: johnmill@mmintl.UUCP (John Miller)
Organization: Ashton-Tate, East Hartford, CT.
Lines: 34
Xref: utzoo sci.med:5734 sci.electronics:3088

In article <1687@sigma.UUCP> bill@sigma.UUCP (William Swan) writes:

>Uhhh.. do you mean, perhaps, 100 uA? Seeing as how fatal 60hz currents
>are normally somewhere in the range of 5-20 mA, 100 mA sounds kinda high.

I assume you mean 120v 60Hz currents ... Then I am dead many times over.

A very rough rule of thumb is that it takes 500 watts through the thorax to
kill a normal healthy adult human.  Under ideal conditions -- say, your hands
are wet with salt water and you have a tight grip on appropriate terminals
with each of them -- 50 volts can drive 10 amps through you, and by this
criteria can kill you.  Conversly, I've been charged to over a million volts,
every hair on my body standing straight out and blue corona around my finger-
tips, and hardly felt a tingle; the current through my body being some small
fraction of a microamp.

High frequency current flow tends to migrate to the surface of the conducting
body, so under proper conditions you can conduct many times 500 watts without
much direct electrical effect -- but you may get burned at entry and exit
points.

Burns also are the real cause of death in many cases reported by the press
as "electrocution."

Sorry, I can't give you any references for the above.  It has been many years
since I experimented with such things.  Back then it was "cycles per second"
instead of "hertz," and I suppose I should talked in terms of "volt-amps"
instead of watts.

I have abnormally dry skin and it takes more voltage to drive a given current
through me than for most people.  In my wasted youth I sometimes accepted
challenges as to who could take the most "juice" and nearly always won.  I
have taken dosages not far below the 500 watt level mentioned above and I
want you to know that it didn't affect me didn't affect me didn't affect me
didn't affect me didn't affect me didn't affect me