576 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1775. 



vessel, called a tartana, with 1 8 men, and went out 20 miles to sea, where the 

 bottom is muddy, and where those fish are chiefly to be found. We caught, 5 ; 

 of which 4 were about a foat in length, and the other of a smaller size. Before 

 the nets were taken up, I charged a coated jar by a glass tube, and gave a shock 

 to some of the sailors, who all said they felt the same sensation as when they 

 touched the torpedo. They also said, that this animal has but very little force 

 in winter, and cannot live a long time out of the water. I put the torpedos im- 

 mediately into a tub, filled with sea water, together with 2 or 3 other fishes, 

 which I found not at all hurt by their company. I took one of the torpedos in 

 my hand, so that my thumbs pressed gently the upper side of those two soft 

 bodies at the side of the head, called (perhaps very improperly) musculi falcati 

 by Redi and Lorenzini, while my forefingers pressed the opposite side. About 

 a minute or 2 after,- I felt a sudden trembling in my thumbs, which extended no 

 farther than my hands : this lasted about 2 or 3 seconds. After some seconds 

 more, the same trembling was felt again. Sometimes it did not return in several 

 minutes, and then came again, at very different intervals. Sometimes I felt the 

 trembling both in my fingers and thumb. These tremors gave me the same 

 sensation as if a great number of very small electrical bottles were discharged 

 through my hand very quickly one after the other. The fish occasioned the 

 shock, or trembling, as well out of the water as in it. The shock lasted some- 

 times scarcely a second ; sometimes 2 or 3 seconds. Sometimes it was very weak ; 

 at other times so strong, that I was very near being obliged to quit my hold of 

 the animal. The torpedo having given one shock, did not seem to lose the 

 power of giving another of the same force soon after ; for I observed several 

 times, that the shocks, when they followed one another very fast, were stronger 

 at last than in the beginning ; and this was the same when the fish was under 

 water as when kept out of it. The pressure of my fingers, more or less strong, 



small-pox ; and in 1768, on the recommendation of Sir John Pringle, he was engaged to go to 

 Vienna to inoculate the Archduchess Teresa-Elizabeth, daughter of the emperor Joseph II., and his 

 majesty's two brothers, tlie archdukes Ferdinand and Maximilian ; and the next year he went to 

 Italy and inoculated the grand duke of Tuscany. The rewards of tliese services were the rank of 

 body physician and counsellor of state to their Imperial Majesties, with a pension for life of about 

 600l. sterling per annum. For many years afterwaids he resided chiefly in England, almost un- 

 ceasingly employed in scientific pursuits, till the time of his death, which happened at Bowood Park, 

 the seat of tlie marquis of Lansdowne, Sept. 7, 1799, at a very advanced age. Dr. I. was a man of 

 great simplicity of manners, and benevolence of disposition ; to whom the public are indebted for 

 several curious and usefial discoveries ; particularly in the application of pneumatic chemistry and 

 natural philosophy, to the purposes of medical and agricultural improvements. Besides several inge- 

 nious papers in the Philos. Trans, from vol. 6'5 to vol. 70, Dr. I. pubhshed in 177 9, " Experiments 

 on Vegetables, discovering their great power of purifying the common air in sunshine, and of injuring 

 it in the shade and at night;" which have since Ijeen extended and improved, and republished on 

 the Continent, in collections of his works in French and German editions, which include also his 

 papers in the Phil. Trans, and others which were pubKshed in the Journal de Physique. 



