Skip to content

Please be aware that some material may contain words, descriptions or illustrations which will not reflect current scientific understanding and may be considered in today's context inaccurate, unethical, offensive or distressing.

Description

Davy describes experiments made on a single fish, of middle size commonly known as electric ray, recently taken out of the water. Portions of the electrical organs, cut transversely in thin slices, showed under the microscope many elliptical particles, apparently blood corpuscles, the long diameter of which was about 1-800th, and the short about 1-1000th of an inch, and a few filaments, apparently nervous, irregularly scattered; some of them tortuous, and all about the 2000th of an inch in diameter. The latter bore no resemblance to muscular fibres. The blood contained some globular particles, having a diameter of the 4000th of an inch, mixed with the elliptical. The mucus for lubricating the surface was found to contain globules apparently homogeneous in substance, but of irregular outline, and in size varying from the 2000th to the 270th of an inch.

Annotations in pencil throughout.

Subject: Zoology / Ichthyology

Received 7 January 1841.

Written by Davy at Constantinople [Istanbul].

Whilst the Royal Society declined to publish this paper in full, an abstract of the paper was published in volume 4 of Abstracts of the Papers Printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London [later Proceedings of the Royal Society] as 'Miscellaneous observations on the torpedo'.

Reference number
AP/25/4
Earliest possible date
06 December 1840
Physical description
Ink and graphite pencil on paper
Page extent
4 pages
Format
Manuscript

Creator name

John Davy

View page for John Davy

Use this record

Citation

John Davy, Unpublished paper, 'Miscellaneous observations on the torpedo' by John Davy, 06 December 1840, AP/25/4, The Royal Society Archives, London, https://makingscience.royalsociety.org/items/ap_25_4/unpublished-paper-miscellaneous-observations-on-the-torpedo-by-john-davy, accessed on 12 February 2025

Link to this record

Embed this record

<iframe src="https://makingscience.royalsociety.org/embed/items/ap_25_4/unpublished-paper-miscellaneous-observations-on-the-torpedo-by-john-davy" title="Unpublished paper, 'Miscellaneous observations on the torpedo' by John Davy" allow="fullscreen" frameborder="0" width="100%" height="500px"></iframe>

Related Publications

Hierarchy

This item is part of:

Related Fellows

Explore the collection

  • Archived Papers

    Dates: 1768-1989

    The 'Archived Papers' collection is comprised of original manuscript scientific papers and letters submitted to the Royal Society which remained unpublished or were abstracted in the journal 'Proceedings of the Royal Society' published from 1830 onwards.

    View collection