480 History of Luminescence 



Baker noted that worms were responsible for the light of oysters 

 and wrote: 



As the Bodies of Lobsters -^ and some other Kinds of Fisches, tainted 

 Flesh, rotten Wood and other Substances are sometimes found to shine 

 with a Light resembling the foregoing, [i. e., animalcules on oysters] may 

 it probably proceed from the same, viz. from Animalcules. . . . The 

 curious will judge it proper to examine this matter carefully, and to 

 them it is submitted. 



ANTON MARTIN 



A most important work on fish luminescence, pointing out the 

 necessity of salt for the development of light, was published by the 

 Swede, Antonius Martin, in 1761. Although Martin gave no evi- 

 dence of accepting Baker's prophetic hint, he did study luminous 

 fish as a means of interpreting phosphorescence of the sea. His ex- 

 periments were described by Priestley (1772: 575-576) : 



He thought that he had reason to conclude, from a great variety of experi- 

 ments, that all sea fishes have this property; but that it is not to be 

 found in any that are produced in fresh water. Nothing depended upon 

 the colour of the fishes, except that he thought that the white ones, and 

 especially those that had white scales, were a little more luminous than 

 others. This light, he found, was increased by a small quantity of salt, 

 and also by a small degree of warmth, though a greater degree extin- 

 guished it. This agrees with another observation of his, that it depends 

 intirely upon a kind of moisture, which they had about them, and 

 which a small degree of heat would expell, when an oilness remained 

 which did not give this light, but would burn in the fire. Light from 

 the flesh of birds or beasts is not so bright, he says, as that which pro- 

 ceeds from fish. Human bodies, he says, have sometimes emitted light 

 about the time that they began to putrify, and the walls and roof of a 

 place in which dead bodies had often been exposed, had a kind of 

 dew or clamminess upon it, which was sometimes luminous; -^ and he 

 imagined that the lights which are said to be seen in burying grounds 

 may be owing to this cause.-" 



Martin also recognized that sea fish never luminesced when alive 

 and swimming— that any light observed near a living fish came from 

 small " worms " in the sea water— and that freshly caught fish never 

 luminesced the first evening but on the second the eyes of the fish 



^■'' Baker probably referred to Beal's letter, quoted previously. Luminous meat was 

 reported from time to time, for example by M. Marcelle, a correspondent of the 

 French Academy at Toulouse in 1755 (Mem. de Math. Phys. Sar. Etranger 2: 613-614, 

 1755) . 



^^ Probably luminous mycelium of a fungus. 



"'Swed. Abhand. 23:225. 1764. 



