Tools against electrical risks : historical remarks

Tools against electrical risk: historical remarks   Alessandro Porro1, Andrea Colombo2, Bruno Falconi1, Lorenzo Lorusso3, Antonia Francesca Franchini2   2 Department of Clinical Sciences and Community Health    On December 26, 1883 in Milan the first power plant of continental Europe went into operation. It was thermoelectric and used the Edison system. It opened a new era also for electrical risk. The development of the industrial use of electricity promoted the study of the means to prevent and intervene in cases of electrocution. The means of prevention were studied in depth, whereas few data seem to be available in regard to the construction and spread of tools to be used following an electrical accident. We analyzed some catalogs of European and U.S. industrial production, between 1897 and 1940. Only in three cases is given marketing of instruments for the electrical injured treatment. In the 1906 catalog of the Odelga company of Vienna we find a first aid kit containing general devices of assistance. A Milanese firm, the Idrofila, in a 1910 catalog offers a set of insulating tools for  the first intervention.  More interesting is the box for the electrical emergency "revivator" present in the 1926 Odelga catalog. It was set up by Stefan Jellinek (1878-1968), then professor of electro-pathology  in Vienna, which would set up an electro-pathological Museum, still existing. The  Jellinek box  could be used in case of  electrical injury and as a training tool for the specific personnel. In 1931 the ICOH reported to ILO Jellinek experience as a model for training and intervention against accident. Jellinek, jew, was forced to leave Austria in 1939. In the U.K. he devoted himself to studies on resuscitation.