SCIENCE. 



27 



shock." We are informed that the fish makes use of this 

 power to defend itself against its enemies, and also as an 

 offensive weapon towards its victims. This means of de- 

 fense, however, does not only take effect in consequence 

 of immediate contact, but likewise when the fish is quite 

 removed from all association with any object. It is well 

 known that the shock has been clearly felt, as if by close 

 contact, (harpoons, etc.), by fishermen who drew towards 

 land a net in which was found a torpedo. When a 

 stream of water was poured from a vessel upon the fish, 

 the men's hands were powerfully affected, just as the 

 frightful, stunning sensation is conveyed to the unsus- 

 pecting angler through the medium of his fishing line. 



It is greatly to be regretted that the most celebrated 

 natural investigator of antiquity did not turn his attention 

 to torpedoes. Among the writings which are attributed to 

 Aristotle only very brief mention is made of this extra- 

 ordinary creature. This is the more to be wondered at 

 inasmuch as Aristotle speaks of the torpedo in reference 

 to something else, and appears to have a complete knowl- 

 edge of its anatomy. He, therefore, knew that it belongs 

 to a viviparous species, a fact which, in our own time, 

 has been disputed by Cuvier. 



Aristotle having failed to give any explanation of the 

 torpedo, it is, perhaps, not astonishing that the rest of an- 

 tiquity did not enter upon the subject. Indeed, among all 

 the writings of the ancients which treat of the torpedo, 

 there cannot be discovered the slightest attempt to throw 

 any light upon this wonderful phenomenon and reduce it to 

 purely natural causes. The best and most intellectual 

 article found among ancient writings in regard to this 

 point is from the pen of the Greek physician, Galenus, 

 who lived in Rome about 200 years after Christ. He 

 compares the effects of the torpedo to the working of the 

 magnet. 2 



Besides the torpedo there is another electric fish be- 

 longing to the realm of antiquity, and in exact opposition 

 to the former, a fresh water fish. In reality, in all the 

 rivers of Africa, especially the Nile and its neighboring 

 streams, from mouth to source, one of the most common 

 fish to be met with is the Malopternus electricus, the 

 electric Silurus. In size and electric power this fish 

 is almost equal to the torpedo, but in other respects 

 it is totally unlike the wonderful salt water creature. It 

 is exceedingly interesting to observe that in this fish the 

 same etymological relations and the same remedial repre- 

 sentations in regard to nervous maladies, are found as in 

 the torpedo. Unfortunately we are not acquainted with 

 the name applied to it by the old Egyptians, neverthe- 

 less, wt know that from the invasion of 638, which laid 

 the foundation of the Arabian language and culture to 

 the present day, the fish has been called raddah or elec- 

 tric fish. The Jesuit Godigno, who in the sixteenth cen- 

 tury undertook a journey to Abyssinia, tells us that the 

 Ethiopians made use of this fish for the purpose of "cast- 

 ing out devils," or in other words to cure nervous dis- 

 eases. 



A passage in Athenaeus where the Marhe is represented 

 among the Nile fish proves that the Greeks were aware 

 that electric fish were found there. Yet, the electric Nile 

 fish appears to have been unintentionally identified by 

 them with the Mediterranean torpedo, as mistakes and 

 misconceptions concerning them extend far into the past 

 century. 



Abd-Allatif, a physician of Bagdad who lived in the 

 twelfth century, writes as follows in his history of Egypt : 

 " Among the animals peculiar to Egypt, we should not 

 forget the fish called raddah for the simple reason that 

 while it lives no one can touch it without experiencing an 

 irresistible trembling sensation. This impression is ac- 

 companied by cold, numbness, a crawling feeling and 

 lameness in the limbs, so that it is impossible for one to 

 remain in an upright position or hold anything. This ex- 



traordinary stupefaction extends through the arm, the 

 shoulder and entire side, however superficial and ligh't the 

 contact with the fish may have been. A fisherman as- 

 sured me that when such a fish is caught in a net, the 

 effect produced is distinctly felt by the man, although his 

 hand does not touch the fish, and even remains some dis- 

 tance from it. When dead the raddah loses this power. 

 People accustomed to bathe in water where this fish is 

 found say that the mere breath (?) of the raddah is suffi- 

 cient to produce such numbness of the body that the per- 

 son affected can scarcely keep from sinking." 3 



We see that the knowledge of Arabian physicians con- 

 cerning the Malopternus amounts to about the same 

 thing as that obtained by the Greek and Roman authors 

 in regard to the torpedo, and in both cases we are unable 

 to discover the slightest trace of any inclination to analyse 

 the mysterious effects of the fish. 



Four hundred years later than the celebrated Arabian 

 physician, the Jesuit Godigno, journeyed on the Nile. He 

 speaks of the electric silurus in exactly the same terms as 

 his predecessors, and it would be useless to mention it 

 here in any special way, if his travels did not refer for the 

 first time to a fact, which as an unconscious example in 

 the study of animal electricity, deserves a place in the 

 history of science. Godigno says : 



" The Ethiopians assert (I myself have never witnessed 

 the fact) that if a living electric fish is placed upon a heap 

 of dead fish and allowed to move among them, the fish 

 thus brought in contact with it are seized with an inward 

 and inexplicable trembling to such an extent that they 

 actually appear to be alive. The cause," he continues, 

 " may be authenticated by those who investigate the 

 nature of things in general, and I leave it to them to de- 

 cide as to what this force of motion communicated by 

 the electric fish to the dead ones may be." 



The next author upon this theme, Francesco Redi, dis- 

 tinguished alike as physician, natural investigator and 

 poet, gloriously opens the path for earnest and systematic 

 research. 



The beginning of this new era in the history of electric 

 fish can be ascertained even to the day and hour. On the 

 14th of March, 1666, a freshly caught torpedo was 

 brought to Redi, and to the examination and dissection of 

 this one specimen we owe his masterly physiological 

 and anatomical description of the torpedo, which no anat- 

 omist can read without the utmost admiration, and which 

 casts the collected wisdom of antiquity into complete 

 shade. 



The most important advancement attributed to Redi, is 

 the discovery of peculiar symmetrical organs situated on 

 each side of the torpedo's head. To-day they go by the 

 name of "electric organs," although the discoverer called 

 them falciform muscles or bodies, and they were known 

 to anatomists as such for more than a century. " It 

 seemed to me," said Redi, in relating his experiments, 

 " as if the painful sensations caused by the torpedo had 

 their origin in these two falciform muscles more than in 

 any other place." Thus the first hints were given to- 

 wards the correct understanding of the fish, and the inex- 

 plicable strength of its electric power pointed out together 

 with its peculiar organs. 



Redi's suppositions were soon proved to a certainty by 

 Lorenzini, one of his pupils, who in the year 1678 pub- 

 lished an anatomy of the torpedo. From that period 

 until the present day, the study of electric fish has always 

 taken the anatomy, physiology and physics of the falci- 

 form organs for its subject, and by this means has been 

 able to obtain deeper and more extensive knowledge. 

 Now the torpedo is no very mysterious object, but at the 

 same time the following question remains more or less 

 open to discussion : How is this wonderful electric organ 

 made, and how is the creature able to produce such ex- 

 traordinary effects by means of it ? 



2 Galeniopera ed. Kuehn.—\o\. VIII., p. 421. 



3 Relation d'Egypte, par Abd-Allatif, mc'dccin Arabe de Bagdad. Tra- 

 duction de M. Silvestre de Sacy, Paris, 1810. 



