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It would be temerity to expose ourselves to 

 the first shocks of a very large and strongly 

 irritated gymnotus. If by chance you receive a 

 stroke before the fish is wounded, or wearied by 

 a long pursuit, the pain and numbness are so 

 violent, that it is impossible to describe the 

 nature of the feeling they excite. I do not re- 

 member having ever received from the discharge 

 of a large Leyden jar, a more dreadful shock, 

 than that which I experienced by imprudently 

 placing both my feet on a gymnotus just taken 

 out of the water. I was affected the rest of the 

 day with a violent pain in the knees, and in 

 almost every joint. To be aware of the differ- 

 ence, which is sufficiently striking, that exists 

 between the sensation produced by the pile of 

 Volta and an electrical fish, the latter should be 

 touched when they are in a state of extreme 

 weakness. The gymnoti and the torpedoes then 

 cause a twitching *, which is propagated from 

 the part that rests on the electric organs as far 

 as the elbow. We seem to feel at every stroke 

 an internal vibration, that lasts two or three 

 seconds, and is followed by a painful numbness. 

 Accordingly the Tamanack Indians call the 

 temblador, in their expressive language, arimna, 

 which means something that deprives of motion. 

 The sensation caused by the feeble shocks of 



* Subsultus tendinum. 



2a2 



