Electric chair

Epic card · No. 3306

An electric chair (also known as an electrical chair or execution chair) is a specialized device used for execution through electrocution. The condemned prisoner is strapped to a custom wooden chair and electrocuted via electrodes attached to the head and legs. Alfred P. Southwick, a dentist in Buffalo, New York, conceived this execution method in 1881. It was developed over the next decade, promoted by Southwick as a more humane alternative to conventional executions, particularly hanging. First used in 1890, the electric chair has become a symbol of capital punishment in the United States. The electric chair was once thought to cause death through cerebral damage, but it was scientifically established in 1899 that death primarily results from ventricular fibrillation and cardiac arrest. It became a common method of capital punishment in the United States and also extensively in the Philippines, but its use has substantially declined with the adoption of lethal injection which was perceived...

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