A theoretical approach to the question of biological effects of low frequency fields

A human body in the vicinity of an overhead cable is subject to two kinds of electrical effects, inductive and capacitive, which together are responsible for tiny currents. Recent concerns about possible biological effects of such currents have made their accurate computation necessary. The author address the mathematical modeling that has to precede such computations. By an asymptotic analysis of the full set of Maxwell's equations (displacement currents not neglected), which takes into account the smallness of the electrical permittivity and the large penetration depth, the author arrives at a standard conduction problem, to which both kinds of effect contribute source terms: inductive effects give a right-hand side, and capacitive effects give a nonhomogeneous boundary condition. Numerical results are displayed.>