EFFECTS OF THE ELECTRIC POWER. 181 



(l6l.) The effects produced by this highly singular 

 organisation were well known to the ancients ; but they 

 — being ignorant of electricity, and prone to invest 

 every uncommon operation of nature with an air of 

 mystery — attributed these shocks to magic, at least, 

 if we may believe some of their poets ; and Pliny, 

 whose credulity was excessive, affirms that the torpedo, 

 even when touched with a spear or stick, can benumb the 

 strongest arm and stop the swiftest foot. The celebrated 

 Redi, in the 17th century, contributed greatly to dissipate 

 these exaggerated notions, by elucidating much of the 

 true history and structure of this wonderful fish ; but 

 our learned coutryman Walsh, by a series of experi- 

 ments made before the Royal Society, was the first who 

 proved that its powers were truly electric. The effects 

 of the torpedo (he observes) are absolutely electrical, 

 forming its circuit through the same conductors with 

 electricity, and being intercepted by the same non- 

 conductors, as glass and sealing-wax. The back and 

 breast of the animal appear to be in different states of 

 electricity ; by a knowledge of which circumstance, we 

 have been able to direct his shocks, though they were 

 small, through a circuit of four persons, all feeling 

 them ; and also through a considerable length of wire 

 held by two insulated persons — one touching the lower 

 surface of the fish, and the other the upper. When 

 the wire was exchanged for glass or sealing-wax, no 

 effect could be obtained ; but as soon as it was resumed, 

 the two persons became liable to the shock. Number- 

 less experiments of this sort determined the choice of 

 the conductors to be precisely the same in the torpedo 

 as in the Ley den phial ; while the sensation occasioned 

 by one and the other, to the human frame, are precisely 

 similar. It is remarkable that the torpedo, when insu- 

 lated, is able to give us, insulated likewise, lorty or 

 fifty successive shocks from nearly the same part, and 

 with little or no diminution of force ; and these are so 

 rapid, that Mr. Walsh says he had taken no less than 

 fifty in succession, from an insulated torpedo, in the space 



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