162 MEMOIRS OF THE CARNEGIE MUSEUM. 
that when it is touched either by the naked hand or by a rod of iron, gold, silver, 
or copper, ete., held in the hand, or by a stick of some particular kind of heavy 
American wood, it communicates a shock perfectly resembling Electricity, which 
is commonly so violent, that but few are willing to suffer it a second time” (p. 190 
et seq.). 
This is a fair description of the eel and its shock. The most noticeable error 
in Banecroft’s statement is that the eel is toothless. As soon as it became rather 
generally known that this fish actually possesses the power of giving a severe 
shock, it was taken up by quacks of all sorts. Several doctors in the Guianas at 
once claimed remarkable cures to have resulted from the proper use of the electric 
eel. One man in particular, Van der Lott of Georgetown, was especially active 
in urging the use of the electric eel in the treatment of disease. Various other 
people from time to time have suggested this use and even today there is an idea 
extant that a piece of the electric eel’s skin, worn about the limb affected, will 
remove rheumatism. Many of the accounts of the electric eel relate strange tales 
of its uses and properties. The story of Humboldt has become classic. This 
represented the Indians driving horses into the pool inhabited by the electric eels 
which were eventually caught as they floated on the surface after having exhausted 
themselves by shocking the horses. Sachs relates the use of the dried vertebre 
of the eel by the Indians in childbirth. He also states that the belief is current 
that a cock once shocked by an electric eel is capable of shocking anything else for 
the remainder of the day; that persons chewing tobacco are immune from being 
shocked; and that a person shocked in the leg is apt to become permanently lame. 
With the advances in science the electric fishes were more carefully investigated 
and among those who studied the electric eel was Faraday. He gave the first 
accurate estimate of the power and nature of the shock of this fish after experi- 
mental work with a 101.6 cm. specimen in captivity at the Adelaide Gallery. 
He found an average shock from this fish to be equal to that from a battery of 
fifteen Leyden jars with a surface of 2.258 square meters loaded to their maximum 
(p. 8, Exp. Researches). 
In 1876-9 Dr. Carl Sachs made a series of observations and experiments upon 
the electric eel in its natural environment. This work was done in Venezuela on 
the Rios Apuré and Orinoco. Unfortunately, he lost his life shortly after his 
return to Europe, before he had worked up his valuable data. Bois-Reymond 
published his notes in 1881 in ‘‘Untersuchungen am Zitteraal’’ (Leipzig). The 
following discussion of the electric eel is based in part on this book. 
1. Anatomy. 
There are three pairs of electric organs in F, electricus, the large electric organs, 
the secondary organs or the organs of Hunter, and the bundles of Sachs. The 
large organs and the organs of Hunter both begin a short distance behind the 
viscera and run nearly the whole length of the fish. The bundles of Sachs are 
