THE TORPEDO. 



207 



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 electrometer 

 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 experiments 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. 



a„ 



COMMON SKATE AND EYED TORPEDO.— Raja batis et Torpedo oeulatm. 



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. 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 detail, will rind ample 

 information in an article on the subject by Dr. Coldstream, in the "Cyclopaedia of Anatomy 

 and Physiology." 



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, 



