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Electric shock can damage the human body by disturbing the nervous system or causing severe burns. The body’s sensitivity to electricity is due to its reliance on electrical impulses to carry information. Electric shock can also be used as medical treatment to correct problems with the nervous system or restart a heart.
An electric shock occurs when an electric current from an external source flows through the tissues of a human body. A shock can be caused by static electricity or by touching a power source such as a battery or power line. The human body can be damaged by electric shock, as the current flow can disturb the normal functioning of the nervous system or, at higher levels, cause severe burns as it passes through the body. Electric shock can also be used as a medical treatment, typically to correct problems with how the body’s nervous system works.
Humans are very sensitive to electricity, in large part, because our nerves rely on electrical impulses to carry information. Even the amount of current generated by a 12-volt battery is usually felt by the more sensitive parts of the nervous system. For an electric current to feel like a shock, however, it typically will need to be more sudden, as in the sudden discharge of static electricity from the body, or more powerful, such as hitting an electric fence or running a house current.
The role that electrical impulses play in the functioning of the nervous system is at the root of one of the major dangers of an electric shock. Nerves use electricity to transmit information. A large enough dose of electricity can easily exceed the normal electrical charge of the nervous system and can leave nerves stuck in an activated state. This process can lead to contractions in the muscular system or, more severely, can disturb the normal heart rhythm.
An additional source of danger from electric shock arises from the fact that the human body consists largely of water and is therefore an adequate, but not ideal, conductor of electricity. This fact allows electricity to pass through the body but ensures that when it does, it causes harm, as waste heat is generated when the current exceeds the body’s natural resistance. When a person is exposed to a very powerful electrical current, this heat is quite intense and will cause severe burns throughout the body, damage that can often prove fatal even if the initial disruption to the nervous system is not.
Electric shock can also be used to heal the body. Electroconvulsive therapy relies on electric shocks to restore the neural state of the brain, which can, over time, cause the dissipation of neural problems that result from unhealthy cascade firings of particular networks of neurons. An electric shock can also be used to restart a human heart or correct the improper beating of a heart where the correct rhythm has been disrupted.
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