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Concept
History of bioelectricity
Summary
The history of bioelectricity dates back to ancient Egypt, where the shocks delivered by the electric catfish were used medicinally.
In the 18th century, the abilities of the torpedo ray and the electric eel were investigated by scientists including Hugh Williamson and John Walsh.
The electric catfish of the Nile was well known to the ancient Egyptians. The Egyptians reputedly used the electric shock from them when treating arthritic pain. They would use only smaller fish, as a large fish may generate an electric shock from 300 to 400 volts. The Egyptians depicted the fish in their mural paintings and elsewhere; the first known depiction of an electric catfish is on a slate palette of the predynastic Egyptian ruler Narmer about 3100 BC.
Electric fishes were known to Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Pliny the Elder among other classical authors. They did not always distinguish between the marine torpedo ray and the freshwater electric catfish.
The naturalists Bertrand Bajon, a French military surgeon in French Guiana and the Jesuit Ramón M. Termeyer in the River Plate basin conducted early experiments on the numbing discharges of electric eels in the 1760s. In 1775, the "torpedo" (the electric ray) was studied by John Walsh; both fish were dissected by the surgeon and anatomist John Hunter. Hunter informed the Royal Society that "Gymnotus Electricus ... appears very much like an eel ... but it has none of the specific properties of that fish." He observed that there were "two pair of these [electric] organs, a larger [the main organ] and a smaller [Hunter's organ]; one being placed on each side", and that they occupied "perhaps ... more than one-third of the whole animal [by volume]". He described the structure of the organs (stacks of electrocytes) as "extremely simple and regular, consisting of two parts; viz. flat partitions or septa, and cross divisions between them." He measured the electrocytes as 1/17 of an inch thick (1.5 mm) in the main organ, and 1/56 of an inch thick (0.5 mm) in Hunter's organ.
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