SECT. I. PHYSIOLOGY. 3 
even of the phenomena of life in organized 
bodies. This ether, or electricity, he abundantly 
proved to be an essential property of all matter. 
Franklin discovered it to be a compound substance. 
vi. In the mean time, animal electricity was not 
wholly overlooked. The faculty which the torpedo 
and the gymnotus electricus possess, of numbing 
those who assail them, had long embellished the 
fire-side tale of the mariner ;. but Redi, physician 
to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, was the first to 
show that this faculty is in proportion to the 
liveliness of the animal. In 1772, Mr. Walsh 
established, by a series of experiments, the 
identity of the numbing power of the torpedo 
and electricity. To this valuable information, 
Mr. Hunter added an accurate description of its 
galvanic apparatus. In 1816, Mr. Todd, of the 
navy, communicated even a more important phy- 
siological fact to the Royal Society of London. 
He divided the nerves of the torpedo which go 
to be distributed in its galvanic battery, and 
found that, in consequence, it lost entirely the 
power of giving electric shocks. Mr. Todd’s ex- 
periments were varied sufficiently to demonstrate, 
that the torpedo’s. power of generating galvanic 
electricity depends essentially on the nerves. 
vit. Many other inductive reasons corroborate 
the identity of electricity, galvanism, magnetism, 
and the vital force, an opinion which has of late 
