current flowing through your body is given by I = 24/100000 = 0.00024A. This current is very small. When such small current passes through the human body, it does not affect the functioning of various organs inside the body.

• Do you know the voltage of mains that we use in our household circuits?


• What happens to our body if we touch live wire of 240V?

The current passing through our body when we touch a live wire of 240V is given by I = 240/100000 = 0.0024A. When this quantities of current flows through the body the functioning of organs inside the body gets disturbed. This disturbance inside the body is felt as electric shock. If the current flow continues further, it damages the tissues of the body which leads to decrease in resistance of the body. When this current flows for a longer time, damage to the tissues increases and thereby the resistance of human body decreases further. Hence, the current through the human body will further increase. If this current reaches 0.07A, it effects the functioning of the heart and if this much current passes through the heart for more than one second it could be fatal. If this current flows for a longer time, the person in electric shock is being killed. See the table 2 that describesthe effects of electric current on human body

from the above discussions, we can conclude that an electric shock can be experienced when there is a potential difference exists between one part of the body and another part. When current flows through human body, it chooses the path which offers low resistance. The resistance of a body is not uniform throughout it. For example, skin offers more resistance than the organs inside the body. As long as current flow continues inside the body the current and resistance of human body goes on changing inversely. Hence, the electric shock is a combined effect of potential difference, electric current and resistance of the human body