Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.
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Animal Electricity as observed in Fishes. The Romans employed a certain fish, centuries ago, that gave shocks for the cure of inveterate headaches, and for rheuma- tisms. The electric fish that was known to them must have been the torpedo, as this very remarkable fish is now found frequently in the Mediterranean Sea. M. Walsh, in 1778, made a scries of systematic experiments to ascertain the nature of these shocks, as then the Leyden vial was already known, and it was surmised Fig. 50. The Electric Torpedo of the American Atlantic Coast. that the "fish phenomenon" was the resiilt of electricity. He soon ascertained that the shock was prevented by any electric wora-conductor, as glass or wax, while the shocks were received when the fish was touched immediately with the finger, or even by a rod of metal. He transmitted the shock of a vigorous, recently caught fish through a circuit of twenty persons, who formed a chain by holding each other by the hand in the ordi- nary way, as was practised with the Leyden jar. In the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, held in Philadelphia, in 1786, as recorded in volume second and number thirteen, it is stated by Mr. Flagg, that if a number