Electrocution

In the Netherlands, in 1746, Pieter van Musschenbroek's lab assistant, Andreas Cuneus, received an extreme shock while working with a leyden jar, the first recorded injury from human-made electricity.

[5] The spread of arc light–based street lighting systems (which at the time ran at a voltage above 3,000 volts) after 1880 led to many people dying from coming in contact with these high-voltage lines, a strange new phenomenon which seemed to kill instantaneously without leaving a mark on the victim.

After an 1881 death in Buffalo, New York, caused by a high-voltage arc lighting system, Alfred P. Southwick sought to develop this phenomenon into a way to execute condemned criminals.

[10] In May 1889 the state of New York sentenced its first criminal, a street merchant and convicted murderer named William Kemmler, to be executed in their new form of capital punishment.

The New York Times editorial column noted words such as "Westinghoused" (after the Westinghouse Electric alternating current equipment that was to be used), "Gerrycide" (after Elbridge Thomas Gerry, who headed the New York death penalty commission that suggested adopting the electric chair), and "Browned" (after anti-AC activist Harold P.

Three elements are required for an electrocution to occur: (a) a charged electrical source, (b) a current pathway through the victim, (c) a ground.

When an electric current flows through the brain or spinal cord, death due to asphyxiation may occur as a result of interference with the central nervous system's control of respiration, or through direct paralysis of the chest muscles.