, one of whom was
deaf, were struck by lightning. It was found that the inner part of the
right ear near the tragus and anti-helix of one of the individuals was
scratched, and on the following day his hearing returned. Olmstead
quotes the history of a man in Carteret County, N.C., who was seized
with a paralytic affection of the face and eyes, and was quite unable
to close his lids. While in his bedroom, he was struck senseless by
lightning, and did not recover until the next day, when it was found
that the paralysis had disappeared, and during the fourteen years which
he afterward lived his affection never returned. There is a record of
a young collier in the north of England who lost his sight by an
explosion of gunpowder, utterly destroying the right eye and fracturing
the frontal bone. The vision of the left eye was lost without any
serious damage to the organ, and this was attributed to shock. On
returning from Ettingshall in a severe thunder storm, he remarked to
his brother that he had seen light through his spectacles, and had
immediately afterward experienced a piercing sensation which had passed
through the eye to the back of the head. The pain was brief, and he was
then able to see objects distinctly. From this occasion he steadily
improved until he was able to walk about without a guide.

Le Conte mentions the case of a negress who was struck by lightning
August 19, 1842, on a plantation in Georgia. For years before the
reception of the shock her health had been very bad, and she seemed to
be suffering from a progressive emaciation and feebleness akin to
chlorosis. The difficulty had probably followed a protracted
amenorrhea, subsequent to labor and a retained placenta In the course
of a week she had recovered from the effects of lightning and soon
experienced complete restoration to health; and for two years had been
a remarkably healthy and vigorous laborer. Le Conte quotes five similar
cases, and mentions one in which a lightning-shock to a woman of
twenty-nine produced amenorrhea, whereas she had previously suffered
from profuse menstruation, and also mentions another case of a woman of
seventy who was struck unconscious; the catamenial discharge which had
ceased twenty years before, was now permanently reestablished, and the
shrunken mammae again resumed their full contour.

A peculiar feature or superstition as to lightning-stroke is its
photographic properties. In this connection Stricker of Frankfo