Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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Had We Placed A Very Delicate Electroscope In The
Contiguous Strata Of Water, It Might Possibly Have Been Influenced At
The moment when the gymnotus seemed to direct its stroke elsewhere.
Prepared frogs, placed immediately on the body of a
Torpedo,
experience, according to Galvani, a strong contraction at every
discharge of the fish.
The electrical organ of the gymnoti acts only under the immediate
influence of the brain and the heart. On cutting a very vigorous fish
through the middle of the body, the fore part alone gave shocks. These
are equally strong in whatever part of the body the fish is touched;
it is most disposed, however, to emit them when the pectoral fin, the
electrical organ, the lips, the eyes, or the gills, are pinched.
Sometimes the animal struggles violently with a person holding it by
the tail, without communicating the least shock. Nor did I feel any
when I made a slight incision near the pectoral fin of the fish, and
galvanized the wound by the contact of two pieces of zinc and silver.
The gymnotus bent itself convulsively, and raised its head out of the
water, as if terrified by a sensation altogether new; but I felt no
vibration in the hands which held the two metals. The most violent
muscular movements are not always accompanied by electric discharges.
The action of the fish on the human organs is transmitted and
intercepted by the same bodies that transmit and intercept the
electrical current of a conductor charged by a Leyden jar, or Voltaic
battery.
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