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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The
Sensation Is The Same When The Fish Is Placed Between Two Metallic
Plates, The Edges Of Which Do Not Touch, And The Person Applies Both
Hands At Once To These Plates.
The interposition of one metallic plate
prevents the communication if that plate be touched with one hand
only, while the interposition of two metallic plates does not prevent
the shock when both hands are applied.
In the latter case it cannot be
doubted that the circulation of the fluid is established by the two
arms.
If, in this situation of the fish between two plates, there exist any
immediate communication between the edges of these two plates, no
shock takes place. The chain between the two surfaces of the electric
organ is then formed by the plates, and the new communication,
established by the contact of the two hands with the two plates,
remains without effect. We carried the torpedo with impunity between
two plates of metal, and felt the strokes it gave only at the instant
when they ceased to touch each other at the edges.
Nothing in the torpedo or in the gymnotus indicates that the animal
modifies the electrical state of the bodies by which it is surrounded.
The most delicate electrometer is no way affected in whatever manner
it is employed, whether bringing it near the organs or insulating the
fish, covering it with a metallic plate, and causing the plate to
communicate by a conducting wire with the condenser of Volta. We were
at great pains to vary the experiments by which we sought to render
the electrical tension of the torpedo sensible; but they were
constantly without effect, and perfectly confirmed what M. Bonpland
and myself had observed respecting the gymnoti, during our abode in
South America.
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