THE TORPEDO. 



217 



despite of all the shocks sent by the angry fish through the sensitive limb of the aggres 

 sor ; and in the latter case the Torpedo was used, as it were, to frighten the fever out 

 of the system. The patient was stripped, and the Torpedo placed successively to the 

 joints, trunk, and extremities, so that the whole of the body and limbs were permeated 

 in their turn by the electric shock. 



That the stroke of the Torpedo is veritable electricity is a fact which was once much 

 disputed, but is now conclusively proved by a host of experiments. Needles have been 

 magnetized by it just as if the shock had been that of a galvanic battery, the electro- 

 meter showed decided proofs of the nature of the fluid that had been sent through it, 

 and even the electric spark has been obtained from the Torpedo very small, it is true, 

 but still recognizably apparent. It is rather curious, that in the course of the experi- 

 ments it was discovered that the upper surface of the Torpedo corresponded with the 

 copper plate of a battery, and the lower surface with the zinc plate. 



The structure of the electrical organ is far too complex to be fully described in this 

 work, as it would require at least forty or fifty pages, and a large number of illustrations. 



EYED TORPEDO.-Tb/pedo oculata. 



I will, however, give a brief summary of the strange organ by which such wonderful 

 results are obtained, and any of my readers who would like to examine it more in de- 

 tail, will find ample information in an article on the subject by Dr. Coldstream, in the 

 " Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology," and from a valuable series of wax models 

 in the museum of the College of Surgeons. 



Briefly, then, this organ is duplex, and consists of a great number of columns, placed 

 closely against each other, each inclosed in a very thin membrane. These columns are 

 again built up, as it were, of flat discs, separated by a delicate membrane, which seems 

 to contain fluid. This structure may be roughly imitated by piling a number of coins 

 upon each other, with a bladder between each coin and its successor in fact, a kind of 

 voltaic pile. The length of the columns, and consequently the number of discs, varies 

 according to their position in the body. The columns extend quite through the creat- 

 ure, from the skin of the back to that of the abdomen, and are clearly visible on both sides, 

 so that those of the middle are necessarily the longest, and those at either end become 

 gradually shorter. In many large specimens, more than eleven hundred columns were 

 counted, and the number of discs is on an average a hundred to the inch. It seems, from 



