FISHES AND FISHING. 165 



At a meeting of the British Association in Dublin, 

 (see "Athenaeum," 5th September, 1857,) Professor 

 G. Wilson read a paper on the Employment of the 

 Living Electric Fishes as Medical Shock Machines. 

 He stated that the living torpedo was employed as a 

 remedial agent by the ancient Greek and Roman phy 

 sicians, and in proof that it was so used previous to 

 the Christian era, he quoted Galen, Dioscorides, Scri- 

 bonius, and Asclepiades ; of the last there were two : 

 the first, fifty years before the Christian era; the other, 

 ninety-eight years after ; but as to the writings of 

 either of these two, I have in vain enquired for them. 

 Scribonius flourished A.D. 10, and Dioscorides A.D. 60. 

 Of Galen, I shall speak presently. 



In 1843, at Berlin, was published a dissertation 

 entitled "Quse apud veteres de Piscibus Electricis 

 exstant Argumenta : Auctore JEmilius du Bois." This 

 is in the British Museum. Hippocrates is 'mentioned 

 as the first to describe the torpedo, and he speaks 

 of them as serviceable in certain diseases, but only 

 as articles of diet. Scribonius says they may be ap 

 plied in cases of head- ache and gout. Pliny and 

 Dioscorides, who were nearly contemporaneous, praise 

 the therapeutic properties of the torpedo. Plutarch 

 speaks of the properties of this fish, but not of its 

 therapeutic application. Galen speaks of the therapeu 

 tic uses of this fish, when applied externally. Now 



