(From ev, and to involve, because it rolls itself in the mud). The eel.

Eels that are met with in rivers, or other clear running waters, are the best; the liver and the gall are extremely acrid. Boerhaave says, that no fish has a more acrid gall; and that with a mixture of the galls of the eel and the pike, made into pills, he hath cured many rickety children with hard and swelled bellies.

The torpedo, or torporific eel, found in Guiana, in South America, if caught by a hook, violently shocks the person who holds the line; and the shock is communicated in a circle like the electrical. Hence it is called the electric eel. No shock is perceived by holding the hand in the water near the fish when it is neither displeased nor touched; but if it is angry, it can give a shock to a person at five or six inches distance. This shock is produced by an emission of electric or Galvanic energy, which the fish discharges at pleasure. On the death of the animal no such property remains, and then the Indians eat it.