Today I got the records for my 3rd great-aunt from what was formerly known as the Northern Inidana Hospital for the Insane. On June 9, 1894, when no one was looking, she went into the watercloset, tore a strip of fabric from her skirt and hanged herself from a pipe. She was 65 years old.
The record says, “She was immediately taken down and breathed a few times. I arrived in a very few minutes - she breathed once or twice, but artificial respiration, & the battery proved of no avail.”
I tried searching for this but didn’t have any luck. Does anyone know or have any guesses as to what “the battery” was?
tramp
June 6, 2003, 2:11am
2
Maybe something to shock her heart?
Apparently, the first case of the use of electricity to revive someone apparently dead was in 1774(!).
**1774 **
A Mr Squires, of Wardour Street, Soho lived opposite the house from which a three year old girl, Catherine Sophia Greenhill had fallen from the first storey window on 16th July 1774. After the attending apothecary had declared that nothing could be done for the child Mr Squires, "with the consent of the parents very humanely tried the effects of electricity. At least twenty minutes had elapsed before he could apply the shock, which he gave to various parts of the body without any apparent success; but at length, upon transmitting a few shocks through the thorax, he perceived a small pulsation: soon after the child began to sigh, and to breathe, though with great difficulty. In about ten minutes she vomited: a kind of stupor, occaisioned by the depression of the cranium, remained for some days, but proper means being used, the child was restored to perfect health and spirits in about a week.
“Mr. Squires gave this astonishing case of recovery to the above gentlemen, from no other motive than a desire of promoting the good of mankind; and hopes for the future that no person will be given up for dead, till various means have been used for their recovery.”
Since it is clear she sustained a head injury the electricity probably stimulated the child out of deep coma rather than providing cardiac defibrillation (see also 1788, Charles Kite). Annual Report 1774: Humane Society, London. pp 31-32
http://www.ecglibrary.com/ecghist.html
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=battery Look at definition 3. I suspect this is the sort of thing the record is referring to.
I’d been wondering if it was that type of “battery”, myself. I’m surprised to find out electricity was being used in that way well before 1894 though. Now I wonder which one was meant.
Another instance of “battery” here, from 1858.
‘We tried every means of restoration. A powerful battery was at hand, and going, and was applied at once. I opened his trachea; and we kept up artificial respiration for half an hour, by blowing into the tube and pressing the abdomen alternately. The battery was applied with sufficient strength to contract forcibly the muscles of the face, neck and trunk, and to produce the movements of respiration, but without affecting the heart in the slightest degree; and at the suggestion of one present, I injected a warm saline solution into the cephalic vein, to try to stimulate the heart; but all our efforts were in vain, for the man was dead.’
So, I’d agree with the others here.
Thanks to everyone for the great information.