357
Iuly. 24. 1679.
S
r Ionas more
the vice P
t. tooke the chair
The minutes of
the Iuly
the 17
th. were read wherevpon S
r. Iohn Hoskins was
De
sired to giue the Society an account of the Italian Booke which he had vn
dertaken to Peru
se. which he accordingly did somew
t to this effect.
That the book was full of curious & new obseruations. that the author had
very minutly & particularly De
scribed the torpedo and its parts. that tis of
thesort of
the flat cartilagineous fi
shes. that there are two sorts of It a greater
& a Le
sser. that he had seen of the greater weighing 25
ll. and of
the Le
sse not aboue
six ounces. in the skin he de
scribes seuerall pores which are ^ /the ends of double/ ductus's to bring
slime to
the skin to make it slippery one of the
se Ductuses comes from the head
the other from
the sides of
the back. that the brain touches
the pia mater in
the ba
se
only being separated elswhere by water in w
ch. it swims. that
the heart has but
one auricle, and continues to moue 9 or 10 houres after tis cut out. as the parts of
thebody when separated will 4 or 5 howres. that its ouarium is neer the Liuer and a double
ouiduct
wher and womb wherein
the young ones swim free and haue noe communication
w
th. the womb. by the by he de
scribes
the genitalls of a lobster & some other fi
shes and shews
some errors of D
r willis. That
the benumming quality is seated in two semicircular
mu
scles on each side
the thorax, consi
sting of fibres about
the bigne
ss of a goos quill
filldmade vp of bladders filld w
th a liquor they end in
the. back & belly. when
the hand . . . hand touches these the fi
sh contracts them & squeezes out the liquor which enters
the skin at
the fingers ends and causes
the numne
sse ^ /like that of the elbow hit against a hard body, but the numne
ss & pain vani
shes in a short time, w
thout pain/. that nothing but immediat con-
tact will produce this effect, that this fish as mo
st others haue properly noe
toung. that
the stomack and Gutt are short & large w
th. few fibres, but abounds
w
th a copious di
ssoluent that con
sumes the fi
sh which it swallows aliue into a chile
that the fi
sh takes in water by seuerall holes neer the stomack & throws it out at
the other end
and Diuers other wa
shing in its way the Brounchia. that the author doth oft Recommend
Experimentall
anatom philosophy & comparatiue anatomy. -
D
r. croon queryd whether the authour had said this benumming liquor were
any colder than
the Re
st of
the body. S
r. Iohn Hoskins sayd not.
m
r. Hill Related that m
r Torreano Lately drinking the waters at Epsham
found that they pa
ssed well the 3 first days but that did not the 4
th &
fifth, wherevpon he quickly after Died & being opend his gutts were -
found gangrened.
m
r. Pappin promised to bring in the next Day a way of keeping large
ve
ssells exhau
sted w
th. ea
se - in order to Boyling & Di
stillation
m
r. Haak produced a Book intitled Propositions of Optick Gla
sses
Printed at
the theater of Oxford.
m
r. Hooke who had Read somew
t of the Book, said that he had not
found any thing in it w
ch. was new, and that It had some About the
place of
the Image which were not true. that It came farr short of
the Theory of Opticks now well known, which he conceiues was fir
st well
vnder
stood by Kepler and highly improued by Descartes
Ref: CELL/RS/HF_359 © Centre for Editing Lives and Letters
