Shock
in electricity: (1) Frictional, a sensation as of a more or less painful concussion or blow attended by a sudden contraction or convulsion of the muscles, produced by a discharge through them of electricity from a charged body. If a number of persons join hands, the first touching the outside coating and the last the knob of a charged Leyden jar , all will receive a nearly simultaneous shock proportioned to the strength of the charge and the number of persons whom it strikes. (2) Dynamical, the sensation produced in the same way by a current from a charged inductive coil, or from a dynamo-electric machine. Owing to the large quantity of these latter currents, fatal accidents not unfrequently occur. In pathology, a sudden and violent derangement of any organ or of the nervous system, and through it of the general frame, consequent on sudden injury, the sight of anything painful or terrible, or the reception of very startling news.