68 BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 



Unaware of this very precise announcement and inference, I applied to the Rev. 

 "W. Anderson, who brought from Old Calabar the living fishes at present in Edin- 

 burgh, and received the following answer : — 



" In reply to your query, I have to state that I am not aware of any statement 

 having been published in reference to the remedial properties of a shock from the 

 fishes, neither have I ever seen them used in any way in sport ; but Mrs. Anderson, 

 to whom belongs all the credit of bringing the fishes home, testifies that the native 

 mothers generally keep one of the fishes in a native-made- basin, and that on 

 washing their infants in the morning the practice is to dip either the hands or the 

 feet of the infant, so as to cause it to receive a shock. This is done, they say, for 

 the purpose of strengthening the child. The strong and the healthy have to un- 

 dergo the operation as well as the weak and sickly." And that the fish is not an 

 inactive agent in this singular process may be safely inferred from what follows— 

 " So far as Mrs. Anderson's observation goes, there is no liking for the afikir on 

 the child's part ; plenty of struggling and squalling. The natives use the fish as 

 food." 



A third and independent account of the native usages in reference to the malap- 

 terurus has been furnished by Mr. John R. Wylie, recently a teacher at Creek 

 Town, Old Calabar, but at present in Edinburgh on sick leave. Mr. Wylie says: 

 " The Calabar women use this fish in the following manner : They put one or two, 

 according to size, in a tub of water, and then wash their children (infants) in tie 

 tub with the fish and all. They must have a strong sense of the benefit derived 

 from this, as in general they dislike doing anything which makes their infants cry ; 

 and this process makes them do so most lustily. They also make the children 

 diink a great quantity of the water in which these fish have been. I have been in 

 yards, and seen, on several occasions, the process described." 



The ascription of remedial virtues to the water in which the malapterurus has 

 been kept, is a fact of interest when taken in connection with the similar opinion 

 entertained by the Greeks, according to ^liau, in reference to the water in which 

 a torpedo had lain. 



After the triple testimony adduced, it will not be doubted that the employment 

 of the malapterurus as a remedial electric machine is an established practice 

 among the natives of Old Calabar ; and few will question the justness of Mr. 

 Murray's inference, that the practice is one of great antiquity among them. 



It thus appears, that the nations bordering the Jilediterranean, the Abyssinians, 

 the Indians of South America, and the dwellers on the western rivers of Africa, 

 have independently used the torpedo, the gymnotus, and the malapterurus as 

 living shock-machines. The practice certainly dates from before the Christian 

 era, so far as the first-named fish is concerned, and in all probability is of much 

 mrlier date for. all the electric fishes. 



Two conclusions, accordingly, seem unavoidable ; namely, 1st. That the oldest 

 electrical machine employed by mankind was the living electric fish ; 2nd. That 

 the electric machine most familiar to mankind is also the electric fish. The latter 

 conclusion is of much lessiinterest to myself than the former ; and daily as galvanic 

 batteries, and other electrical apparatus, are more widely known, it will become 

 less significant. But as the present usages of uncivilized nations represent their 

 past usages back even to a remote antiquity, the light in which a barbaric people 

 still regards creatures so remarkable e,s the electiic fishes is certa'n in most cases 



