THE GYMNOTUS, OR ELECTRICAL EEL. 29 



and electrical fishes, the latter must be touched when they 

 are reduced to a state of extreme weakness. In that case we 

 observe, that the electrical eels and torpedos cause twitchings 

 of the muscles (subsultus tendinum), which are propagated 

 along the arm, from the part resting on the electric organ up 

 to the elbow. This trembling, which is not visible externally, 

 slightly resembles the very slight commotions produced by 

 our artificial electrical apparatuses. M. Bayon, some time 

 ago, was struck with this difference; and the common people, 

 to characterize the nature of this extraordinary sensation, 

 still confound, so to say, the cause ! with the effect, and call 

 the gymnotus, Tremblador in the Spanish colonies, and An- 

 guille tremblante in French Guiana. In fact, on touching 

 these electrical fishes, we seem to feel at every shock a vibra- 

 tion, an internal trembling, which lasts for two or three se- 

 conds, and which is followed by a painful numbness. 



If the sensation which is experienced on the contact of the 

 electric eel be different from that which is produced by the 

 voltaic pile or Leyden jar, it is, however, very analogous to 

 the pain caused by applying zinc and silver to wounds on the 

 back and on the hand. These wounds, which I have myself 

 made — one by means of the blistering fly, and the other by 

 a slight incision — have furnished abundant and convincing 

 proof of the relations which exist between the effect of elec- 

 trical fishes, and that of the galvanic current established by 

 the application of different metals upon the human body. 



After having handled gymnoti for four hours consecutively, 

 we felt, even till the next morning, a pain in the joints of the 

 extremities, a debility in the muscles, and a general uneasi- 

 ness, which was, without doubt, the consequence of a long 

 and violent irritation of the whole nervous system. M. Van 

 der Lott, surgeon at Essequibo, has published in Holland a 

 Memoir on the Medical Properties of the Electrical Eel. 

 Mr. Bancroft assures us, that at Demerara they are employ- 

 ed for the cure of paralytic subjects ; but in the Spanish 

 colonies they know nothing of this property in the gymnotus. 

 The ancients, however, made use of the galvanic electricity 

 of the torpedo, according to Scribonius Largus, in cases of 

 head-ache, megrims, and gout. And such is all we know 

 respecting medical electricity among the Greeks and the 

 savages of America. 



Persons most accustomed to electric shocks support, with 

 repugnance, those given by a torpedo one foot four inches 

 in length ; but the power of a gymnotus is ten times greater, 

 as we have seen by its effect upon horses. It often happens, 

 in taking young crocodiles of two or three feet in length, and 



