TORPEDO. 
125 
he remarked that after death no other sensation proceeded from 
it than might come from any other fish. Redi made the trial 
of placing his hand in the water in which the fish lay, but 
without feeling any inconvenience; as might he expected if the 
fish were not irritated. This author detected the existence of 
what we now know to be the electric organs; but he failed 
to understand their mode of operation, and supposed the columns 
to be of the nature of muscles. 
The operations of Mr. Walsh were conducted under more 
favourable circumstances, in consequence of the discoveries that 
had been lately made in the science of electricity. The 
substance of them was, that the fish possessed the power of 
accumulating in its electrical organs a considerable amount of 
that fluid, much in the same manner as it is accumulated in 
the instrument called the Leyden phial ; so that while one of its 
surfaces, the back, was in the positive condition, the belly was 
negative; and the equilibrium could be restored by the inter- 
position of water, metals, or the human body. Besides the degree 
of pain and numbness inflicted by this voluntary discharge on 
the part of the fish, under the influence of its will or passion, 
its violence can be judged by what is reported by Lacepede: 
that a duck was presently killed by being exposed to the shock. 
In Mr. Walsh’s experiment a Torpedo was laid on a table, 
where it rested on a wet napkin. Five persons, insulated, or 
separated from any connection with a conducting substance, 
stood round another table; and two brass wires, each thirteen 
feet long, were suspended by silk strings from the ceiling of 
the room. One of these wires rested by one of its ends on the 
wet napkin, and the other end was immersed in a basin of 
water placed on a second table; on which stood four other 
basins, also full of water. The first person placed a finger of 
one of his hands in the water in which the wire was immersed, 
and a finger of his other hand in the second basin; and so on 
successively until all the five persons were brought into com- 
munication with one another by means of the water in the 
basins. One end of the second wire was dipped into the last 
basin of water, and with the other end Mr. Walsh pressed the 
hack of the fish; at which instant the whole of the five persons 
were affected with the shock. Nothing could have been more 
decisive, even if the electric machine had been itself employed. 
VOL. I. T 
