Dalziel revisited

More than 37 years have passed since Charles F. Dalziel published his last of four seminal papers on ventricular fibrillation (v-f ). His empirical formula for the current necessary to produce v-f in man has been recognized by scientists and engineers as forming the basis for an analytical understanding of this major cause of death from electrical shock. In this article, the additional electrical parameters of energy, voltage, and resistance are related analytically to Dalziel's work. The fundamental equations for v-f have been used in this article to derive two additional relationships for the electrical parameters of interest in the shock process that can produce v-f in humans.It has been shown that the source energy necessary to produce v-f is a function only of the subject weight and the critical path resistance of the current path from made contact through the human body.