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Alexander von Humboldt: „Baron Humboldt’s observation on the gymnotus, or electrical eel“, in: ders., Sämtliche Schriften digital, herausgegeben von Oliver Lubrich und Thomas Nehrlich, Universität Bern 2021. URL: <https://humboldt.unibe.ch/text/1819-Baron_Humboldts_Personal_Heft1-20-neu> [abgerufen am 20.04.2024].
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| Titel | Baron Humboldt’s observation on the gymnotus, or electrical eel | ||||
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| Jahr | 1833 | ||||
| Ort | London | ||||
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Nachweis in: The Zoological Magazine, or Journal of Natural History (1833), S. 28–30.
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| Sprache | Englisch | ||||
| Typografischer Befund | Antiqua; Auszeichnung: Kursivierung; Schmuck: Kapitälchen. | ||||
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|28|
The galvanic electricity of the gymnotus causes a sensationwhich can hardly be said to be specifically distinct from thatwhich is occasioned by the conductor of an electrical machine,a Leyden jar, or even the voltaic pile. The same observationhas been made respecting the torpedo, or electric ray. Inthe gymnotus, however, the difference that does exist is themore striking in proportion as the shocks are greater. Noman exposes himself rashly to the first discharges of a strongand highly irritated gymnotus. If, by accident, a shock bereceived before the fish is wounded or tired out by the pur-suit, this shock is so painful, that it is impossible even tofind an expression to describe the nature of the sensation. Ido not remember to have ever experienced, from the dischargeof a large-sized Leyden jar, a shock so dreadful as one whichI received on placing my feet on a gymnotus which had justbeen drawn out of the water. I felt during the rest of theday an acute pain in the knees, and in almost every joint ofthe body. A blow upon the stomach, a stone falling on thehead, a violent electric explosion, produce instantly the sameeffect. We distinguish nothing when the whole nervous sy-stem is affected at once. To experience the difference believedto exist between the sensations produced by the voltaic pile
|29|and electrical fishes, the latter must be touched when theyare reduced to a state of extreme weakness. In that case weobserve, that the electrical eels and torpedos cause twitchingsof the muscles (subsultus tendinum), which are propagatedalong the arm, from the part resting on the electric organ upto the elbow. This trembling, which is not visible externally,slightly resembles the very slight commotions produced byour artificial electrical apparatuses. M. Bayon, some timeago, was struck with this difference; and the common people,to characterize the nature of this extraordinary sensation,still confound, so to say, the cause with the effect, and callthe gymnotus, Tremblador in the Spanish colonies, and An-guille tremblante in French Guiana. In fact, on touchingthese electrical fishes, we seem to feel at every shock a vibra-tion, an internal trembling, which lasts for two or three se-conds, and which is followed by a painful numbness.
If the sensation which is experienced on the contact of theelectric eel be different from that which is produced by thevoltaic pile or Leyden jar, it is, however, very analogous tothe pain caused by applying zinc and silver to wounds on theback and on the hand. These wounds, which I have myselfmade—one by means of the blistering fly, and the other bya slight incision—have furnished abundant and convincingproof of the relations which exist between the effect of elec-trical fishes, and that of the galvanic current established bythe application of different metals upon the human body.
After having handled gymnoti for four hours consecutively,we felt, even till the next morning, a pain in the joints of theextremities, a debility in the muscles, and a general uneasi-ness, which was, without doubt, the consequence of a longand violent irritation of the whole nervous system. M. Vander Lott, surgeon at Essequibo, has published in Holland aMemoir on the Medical Properties of the Electrical Eel.Mr. Bancroft assures us, that at Demerara they are employ-ed for the cure of paralytic subjects; but in the Spanishcolonies they know nothing of this property in the gymnotus.The ancients, however, made use of the galvanic electricityof the torpedo, according to Scribonius Largus, in cases ofhead-ache, megrims, and gout. And such is all we knowrespecting medical electricity among the Greeks and thesavages of America.
Persons most accustomed to electric shocks support, withrepugnance, those given by a torpedo one foot four inchesin length; but the power of a gymnotus is ten times greater,as we have seen by its effect upon horses. It often happens,in taking young crocodiles of two or three feet in length, and
|30|little fishes in the same net with gymnoti, that the fishes arefound dead, and the crocodile expiring. The Indians, in suchcases, say that the young crocodile had not time to tear thenet, because the gymnotus had paralysed and put him hors ducombat. These terrible fishes, although carnivorous and ofan aspect hideous as the serpent, are nevertheless in somemeasure docile, and naturally of a peaceable disposition.Much less active than our eels, they readily accustom them-selves to their new prison; they eat everything that is offer-ed them, but without manifesting a great voracity. They donot discharge their violent shocks unless irritated; and thenespecially if tickled along the under part of the body, at thetransparent part of the electric organs, at the pectoral fin,the lips, the eyes, and especially if the skin be touched nearthe gill-cover. All these parts seem to be the most sensible,for here the skin is thinnest and least loaded with fat.
Fishes and reptiles which have never before felt the shocksof a gymnotus, do not seem to be warned of their danger byany particular instinct. Although its form and size are ratherimposing, a little tortoise which we put into the same tubapproached it with confidence; it wanted to hide itself underthe eel’s belly; but scarcely had it touched it with the end ofone of its feet, when it received a shock, too feeble, indeed,to kill it, but strong enough to make it retire as far away aspossible. From that moment the tortoise would no longerremain in the vicinity of the torpedo. And so, in all thepools or streamlets which it inhabits, one finds very few fishesof any other species. The gymnotus often kills without de-vouring its victim. It instinctively regards as an enemyeverything that approaches it. Like a cloud surchargedwith the electric fluid, he comes upon the fish he means todestroy; when at a short distance from it, he rests for a fewseconds, necessary perhaps to prepare the storm that is toburst, and then hurls his thunder against his devoted enemy.”—From the Voyage of Humbolt and Bonpland.
[The remainder of these observations, with the mode oftaking the gymnotus by the natives, will be given in a futureNumber].
BARON HUMBOLDT’S OBSERVATIONS ON THE GYMNOTUS, ORELECTRICAL EEL.