The Ancients & Electric Fish

As delightful as this picture of an electric fish, the kind of electric fish I'm talking about is the kind that swims in water and can give you a jolting shock if you touch it.

Ancient Egyptians

It's hard to believe that electricity has been known of for nearly 4,000 years. Of course, they didn't precisely know about it the way we know of it. There are texts from ancient Egypt that refer to fish known as Thunderer of the Nile. Of course these were probably electric eels or something similar, but the Egyptians thought that they protected the other fish.

Greeks and Romans

Then about a thousand years later, these electric fish were written about by the Romans, Greeks, and Arabs. In fact, Pliny the Elder wrote about how the shocks delivered by some of these electric fish had a numbing effect on the hapless person who got stung. They also knew that these shocks could be conducted by some of the objects that came into contact with it.

Take One Electric Fish

Ancient physicians and naturalists seemed most interested in these electric fish. They tried to get shocks delivered to people who suffered from debilitating ailments like gout. Even those with headaches were told to touch electric fish. The powerful shock was thought to have curative powers.

Arabs

The Arabs were credited with the discovery of electricity as in lightning. Before the 1400s, they had a word for lightning, raad, and they used it in conjunction with the electric ray.

Amber & Cat Fur

The ancients also knew that amber rods could be rubbed with cat's fur and the resulting static charge would attract lightweight objects like feathers. Most of the Mediterranean cultures knew about this. In 600 BC, Thales of Miletos set forth his observations on static electricity. Of course, he misinterpreted the results and concluded that friction made amber magnetic, unlike the magnetic minerals like magnetite which didn't need rubbing.

Though he was wrong about the attraction being a result of magnetism, science did later prove a link between electricity and magnetism.

Bringing Meaning To Madness

All our science is built upon thousands of years of experimentation and knowledge.