m 
TORPEDO. 
Then down the rod with easy motion glides, 
And entering in the fisher’s hand subsides. 
On every joint an icy stiffness steals, 
The flowing spirits binds, and blood congeals. 
In vain he trios to grasp the sinking rod. 
And all his fishing-tackle strews the sod.” 
B 3, 
At a time when sea and land were ransacked for remedies 
to cure the various diseases that flesh is heir to, it would have 
been surprising if the wonderful powers of this fish had not 
been resorted to; but as a very large proportion of the medical 
practice of that age was in the hands of those who held them- 
selves out to the public as magicians, and, to use the language 
of the present day, were at least irregular practitioners of the 
art of medicine; with whom things the most strange and 
unaccountable in their eflects were thought the most highly of, 
there is some reason to suppose that the first attempts to turn 
this energy to use had their origin with them. On this subject 
we are indebted again to Pliny for most of the information 
we possess; for recording which, and many others of the pre- 
vailing beliefs that had currency among his people, he has been 
severely condemned, as if he gave credit to the whole. I am 
of opinion, however, that even a small amount of reflection will 
prove sufficient to relieve him from the general charge of credulity 
so commonly brought against him. 
At the time when the Roman empire was in its highest 
grandeur, the larger number of the physicians practising their 
profession in the city were foreigners, and chiefly from Egypt, 
a country which then continued to hold the highest reputation 
for the study of physic and the science of nature; but there 
does not appear to have existed there, and still less at Rome, 
any test by which the impudent pretender might be distin- 
guished from the scientific physician; and consequently the 
boldest assurance might well calculate on achieving the greatest 
success. A single cure effected on a man of eminence, however 
fortuitously obtained, was sufficient to bring a fortune to a 
physician; and the more wonderful the means employed, the 
greater was believed to be the skill of him who used them. 
The rational science of Galen or Celsus was less regarded 
than that laid claim to hy one who could employ the secrets of 
magic and astrology; and where no one was able to disprove 
