Description
Book SynopsisThis book looks at how three kinds of strongly electric fishes literally became electrical, and how they helped to change the sciences and medicine. These fishes are the flat torpedo rays common to the Mediterranean, the electric catfishes of Africa, and an eel from South America. The discovery of the electrical nature of these fishes in the second half of the 18th century was the starting point of the two fundamental advances in the sciences: on the physiological side, the demonstration that nerve conduction and muscle excitation are electrical phenomena, and on the physical side, the invention of the electric battery. Starting with catfish tomb drawings from Ancient Egypt and colorful descriptions of torpedoes from the Classical Era, the authors show how these fishes were both fascinating and mysterious to the ancients. After all, not only could they produce torpor and temporary numbness when touched, they could stun through intermediaries, such as wet nets and spears. Various explan
Trade ReviewThe book is more than a history of the electric fish; it is also a survey of the history of science, introducing all themes and approaches in this discipline in a relevant chronological sequence. This detailed work will be most useful to professional scientists/ historians in ichthyology neurobiology, and the history of the medical sciences. * CHOICE *
Table of ContentsPART I: INTRODUCTION ; 1- The Allure of Electric Fishes: Humboldt's Obsession ; PART II: ANCIENT CULTURES ; 2- The Shocking Catfish of the Nile ; 3- Torpedoes in the Greco-Roman World: ; Pt. 1. Wonders of Nature Between Science and Myth ; 4- Torpedoes in the Greco-Roman World: ; Pt. 2. From Therapeutic Shocks to Theories of the Discharge ; 5- Byzantine and Islamic Writings ; PART III: MIDDLE AGES TO THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD ; 6- Torpedoes: From the Scholastics through the Renaissance ; 7- Rediscovering The Torporific Catfishes ; 8- The "Eels" of South America ; 9- From the Occult to Mechanical Theories of the Discharge ; PART IV: THE EMERGENCE OF FISH ELECTRICITY ; 10- The Electrical World of Benjamin Franklin ; 11- Animal Spirits and Physiology ; 12- First Steps Toward Fish Electricity ; 13- The Dutch, the Eel, and Electricity ; PART V: THE ROYAL SOCIETY AND THE COVETED SPARK ; 14- Edward Bancroft's Guiana Eels and London Connections ; 15- John Walsh's Scientific Journey ; 16- The Royal Society and Interdisciplinary Science ; 17- Out of the Guianas: The American Philosophical Society and the Eel ; 18- Alexander Garden: A Linnaean in South Carolina and Captain Banker's Eels ; 19- Sparks in Darkness and the Eel's Electrical Sense ; 20- Public Knowledge: Newspapers, Magazines, and "Shocking" Poetry ; PART VI: FROM FISH TO NERVE PHYSIOLOGY AND BACK ; 21- Galvani's Animal Electricity ; 22- Electric Fishes in Volta's Path to the Battery ; 23- Galvanism Contra "Voltaism": Electric Fishes and the "Unsolvable" Dilemma ; 24- Electric Fishes in the Nineteenth Century ; 25- The Changing Neurohysiological Setting ; 26- Understanding the Shock Mechanisms: A Twentieth Century Odyssey ; EPILOGUE ; APPENDIX I: Names with Birth and Death Dates ; REFERENCES
