28 THE GYMNOTUS, OR ELECTRICAL EEL. 



the ordinary bent of his own inclination, — if unmolested, in 

 short, he does not wantonly seek occasion to exercise his 

 strength to the injury of other creatures/'* 



BARON HUMBOLDT S OBSERVATIONS ON THE GYMNOTUS, OR 

 ELECTRICAL EEL. 



The galvanic electricity of the gymnotus causes a sensation 

 which can hardly be said to be specifically distinct from that 

 which is occasioned by the conductor of an electrical machine, 

 a Leyden jar, or even the voltaic pile. The same observation 

 has been made respecting the torpedo, or electric ray. In 

 the gymnotus, however, the difference that does exist is the 

 more striking in proportion as the shocks are greater. No 

 man exposes himself rashly to the first discharges of a strong 

 and highly irritated gymnotus. If, by accident, a shock be 

 received before the fish is wounded or tired out by the pur- 

 suit, this shock is so painful, that it is impossible even to 

 find an expression to describe the nature of the sensation. I 

 do not remember to have ever experienced, from the discharge 

 of a large-sized Leyden jar, a shock so dreadful as one which 

 I received on placing my feet on a gymnotus which had just 

 been drawn out of the water. I felt during the rest of the 

 day an acute pain in the knees, and in almost every joint of 

 the body. A blow upon the stomach, a stone falling on the 

 head, a violent electric explosion, produce instantly the same 

 effect. We distinguish nothing when the whole nervous sy- 

 stem is affected at once. To experience the difference believed 

 to exist between the sensations produced by the voltaic pile 



* Griffiths' Cuvier, vol. iii. 



