BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 67 



On this point it remains to state, that even in Europe the gymnotus has been 

 Bsed as an electric machine in the end of last century. One sent from Surinam to 

 Stockholm lived more than four months in a state of perfect health. " Persons 

 afflicted with rheumatism came to touch it in hopes of being cured. They took it 

 at once by the neck and tail : the shocks were in this case stronger than when 

 touched with one hand only. It almost entirely lost its electrical power a short 

 time before its death." In this case, the gymnotus was known to yield electricity 

 by those who employed it ; but the practice was probably borrowed from the 

 aborigines of its native country. At all events, it is quite certain that, alike 

 without knowledge of artificial electrical machines, or acquaintance with the 

 therapeutic uses to which the Greeks and Romans put the torpedo, the wild Indian 

 doctors had made trial of the healing electric virtues of the living gymnotus. 



Within the last three years a new electric fish has become known to us, belong- 

 ing to the same genus as the silurus or malapterurus of the Nile. It is found in 

 the muddy brackish water of the River Old Calabar, near Creek Town, which lies 

 about sixty miles up that river. This stream empties itself into the Bigbt of 

 Benin, within a short distance from the delta of the Ifiger, in lat: 5^° north and 

 long. 8° east. Tiie fish, accordingly, has been named the Malapterurus Beninensis 

 by Mr. Andrew Murray, who has described and figured it in the Edinburgh Phi- 

 losophical Journal for July 1855. 



"We are indebted to the zealous and intelligent missionaries of the United Pres- 

 byterian Church of Scotland, resident at different stations on the River Old 

 Calabar, for our knowledge of the new species of electric fish. Quite recently 

 they have sent home living specimens, some of which are now in Edinburgh : and 

 through the kindness of Professor Goodsir and Mr. Murray, I, along with others 

 interested in the electric energies of the animal, have had the opportunity of 

 observing their shock giving powers. The shock is a sharp one, felt from the 

 fingers to the wrist, the elbow, or the shoulder, according to the activity of the 

 animal, and the position in regard to it of the hands of the experimenter. The 

 fish varies in length from two to twelve inches, is sluggish in its general move- 

 ments, but retentive of vitality and electrical energy even in unfavourable cir- 

 cumstances. 



As soon as my attention was turned to the remedial employment of electric 

 fishes, I proceeded to inquire whether the Africans along the Old Calabar river 

 made any therapeutic use of its malapterurus. But before my inquiries were 

 completed, I learned that the natives did make this use of the fish. In truth, the 

 fact had been published by Mr. Murray two years ago, but I had overlooked (he 

 circumstance. The statement which is quoted below, is the more interesting, that 

 it was not furnished in reply to queries, but was volunteered by Mr. W. C. Thom- 

 son, who was stationed for several years at the Creek Town Mission station on the 

 River Old Calabar. Mr. Murray says : — " Mr. Thomson tells me that the electric 

 properties of the fish are made use of by the natives as a cure for their sick child- 

 ren. The fish is put into a diah containing water, and the child made to play with 

 it : or the child is put in a tub or other vessel with water, and one or rhore of the 

 fish put in beside it. It is interesting to find that a remedy which has only of 

 recent years come into favour among ourselves should |have been already antici- 

 pated by the unlettered savage, who probably has had the remedy handed dowa 

 to him by tradition from remote generations." 



