From an Ambiguous Torpedo to Animal and Physical Electricity

Abstract

Indicative of the fascinating unpredictability of scientific progress, the discovery path that in the last two centuries has brought about some fundamental developments in electrical science, was closely connected to studies leading to the demonstration of the physiological role of electricity in animal tissues. Both depended in an important way on the demonstration of the electrical nature of the shock of the torpedo fish provided by the English ‘natural philosopher’ John Walsh in the summer season of 1772. Until Walsh's time the painful shock produced by the torpedo and similar fish was considered to be the effect of a mechanical agency. This article briefly outlines some interesting aspects of the research path whereby the ‘mechanical’ torpedo turned out to be electrical in nature. It tries, moreover, to establish an ideal link that could relate the curious property of this singular fish with a major recent advance in the field of audiology.