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TOKPEDO. 
gentleman’s experiments on the vital properties of this fish; and 
we shall he indebted to his narrative and explanation for a large 
portion of what we shall relate of its early history; but with 
a larger reference to several other authors who have treated 
upon it. The first writer mentioned by Pringle is Hippocrates, 
who, however, only notices it as an article of food; although, 
as has been justly remarked, by calling it by its significant 
name, it is shewn that he could not have been unacquainted 
with its reputation of possessing singular powers. Plato had a 
like general knowledge of its nature; as is proved by a com- 
parison he causes Menon to make, of his master Socrates to 
this fish. Aristotle, whose study of nature had drawn him further 
than any other into an acquaintance with the habits of living 
beings, and the services their properties secured to themselves, 
informs us of its habit of lying hid, and employing its peculiar 
powers for the purpose of benumbing such fishes as might 
wander near it, and thus satisfying the cravings of appetite. 
It is probable, from his well-known disposition to inquire into 
the natui-e of whatever of interest might fall in his way, that 
himself had examined this fish, although perhaps only after 
death; and he must have felt assured from his inquiries, that 
it truly possessed the properties ascribed to it; for he remarks 
as something worthy of notice, that so active a fish as the 
Mullet had been found in the stomach of so sluggish a creature 
as the Narke. But this eminent philosopher does not appear 
to have known, or perhaps fully credited, some of the particular 
facts reported of it; and it was his successor, Theophrastus, 
who ascertained that the fish was able, when touched by a 
rod or staff, to diffuse its influence to an object at some distance 
from itself. This we learn from Athemeus, who informs us 
also that Diphilius, of Laodicea, discovered the important fact, 
doubted by others, that the powers of the creature proceeded 
only from a limited portiou of its body; to which Hero of 
Alexandria added the observation that metals were capable of 
conveying the influence in the same manner as a rod or staff. 
Plutarch should be mentioned next to Hero, since, although 
probably he did not originally discover it, he is the first to 
mention the circumstance — that the numbing influence had been 
known to pass through a net to the arms of the fisherman; and he 
affirms, what is more fully mentioned by .Lilian and other writers 
