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XVII. The Electromotive Properties of the Electrical Organ of Torpedo Marmorata. 
By Francis Gotch, M.A. Oxon., B.A ., B.Sc. London. 
Communicated by Professor Burdon Sanderson 3 M.D., F.R.S. 
Received May 5,—Read Jane 16, 1887. 
The electrical organ of the Torpedo is so remarkable a structure that it would be 
surprising if it had not engaged the attention of anatomists and physiologists. A 
brief account, which may embody the principal results of their labours, is a necessary 
prelude to that of the present investigation. 
Historical. —-The discovery of the electrical nature of the shock of the Torpedo by 
Walsh (1)" was followed by the remarkable experiments of Cavendish (2). 
Cavendish constructed an artificial Torpedo by placing charged Leyden jars in a 
leather case, which in size and shape resembled the actual fish, and made experiments 
upon this schema, in order to ascertain the influence of its surroundings—whether 
sea-water, wet sand, or air—upon the distribution of the electrical discharge. The 
results obtained were in close accord with those phenomena which prevailed during 
the activity of the fish, and the experiments thus confirmed in a most conclusive 
manner the views propounded by Walsh as to the electrical nature of this activity. 
Anatomy of organ.-— Bedi (3) and Lorenzini (4) had described, previous to 
Walsh’s discovery, and termed “ musculi falcati,” the peculiar organs which are 
present in the Torpedo. They rightly conjectured that these were connected with the 
special powers which the fish possessed, though they were quite in the dark as to the 
real nature of these powers. After the discovery just referred to, the structure of 
the fish was more fully investigated, among others by John Hunter (5), Cuvier and 
Jobert de Lamballe (6). In 1844 Savi (7) published a monograph on the anatomy 
of the nervous system and the electrical organs of the Torpedo which gives an accurate 
picture of the relations of the organ to its nervous supply, and the mode of origin of its 
four large electrical nerves from a special central mass, the electrical lobe, situated 
behind the medulla oblongata, and immediately below the cerebellum. 
In his splendid monograph on the more minute structure of the brain of Fish, Fritsch 
(8) has described the relations of this lobe. It may be considered as a ganglionic 
mass forming a protuberant swelling on each side of the calamus scriptorius. The 
* The numerals in parenthesis refer to the list of works at end. 
11.11.87 
