LIVING TORPEDOS IN BERLIN. 529 



forty years ago. For histological reasons, I doubted the existence, 

 and even the. possibility, of such investments, and I proved, at first 

 only theoretically, but later by experiments with schemata, that 

 multiplication of the electromotive elementary action in the sur- 

 rounding conducting medium does take place, although a battery 

 so formed must be considered as imperfect 1 . 



We now learn, that in the electrical organ there exists a sort of 

 conduction of which the counterpart is hitherto nowhere known. 

 Every fresh characteristic of this wonderful structure must excite 

 attention, inasmuch as the hope of attaining a glimpse of its 

 electrical mechanism is bound up with it. But irreciprocal con- 

 duction has a very special interest, inasmuch as it appears to 

 perform for the organ, a function similar to that of insulating 

 coverings, and it would even seem to accomplish this much more 

 completely. The very fact that we succeeded so little in acquiring 

 an understanding of the essence of this property, tends to enhance 

 the gratification which we feel in the discovery, that it plays a not 

 unimportant part in the economy of the shock of the electrical fish. 

 The following consideration will make this intelligible. 



Let us imagine first, a single column of the Torpedo's organ, 

 surrounded by an unlimited conducting mass. For the present 

 we will disregard all distinctions of ordinary and irreciprocal re- 

 sistance and of polarisation, and picture to ourselves the column as 

 constantly active. It is not difficult to give a general idea of the 

 system of current curves, with which the column fills space. In the 

 first place, it is evident that this system is distributed symmetrically 

 about the axis of the column. Further, it is sj^mmetrical also in 

 regard to the plane which cuts it in half, and which is perpen- 

 dicular to the axis. To make the subject more intelligible, we will 

 call this plane the transverse median plane, the positive dorsal end 

 of the column will be called the superior, and the negative ventral 

 end the inferior. 



Current curves issue from the positive dorsal surface of the 

 column, and also from points of the lateral surface above the 

 median transverse plane. All the curves cut the median transverse 

 plane oo perpendicularly; this plane is in fact the isoelectrical 

 surface of which the tension is o. The curves issuing from the 



1 Vorlaufiger Abriss einer Untersuchung fiber den sogenannten Froschstrom und 

 fiber die elektromotorischen Fische. Poggendorff's Annalen, 1843, vol. Iviii. 

 p. 25 f. Gesammelte Abhandlungen, vol. ii. p. 678 f. TJntersuchungen, &c., pp. 259, 

 284, 300. 



M m 



