Carl Sachs

Carl Sachs (19 September 1853–18 August 1878) was a German zoologist, known for his discovery of what is now called Sachs' organ in the electric eel.

Biography

Carl Sachs was born in Neisse (now in Poland). He was sent to Latin America by the physiologist Emil du Bois-Reymond, to study the electric eel (''Electrophorus'') in the same Llanos region where Humboldt had made his observations; he took with him a galvanometer and electrodes to measure the fish's electric organ discharge, and used rubber gloves ("") to enable him to catch the fish without being shocked, to the surprise of the local people. He published his research on the fish, including his discovery of what is now called Sachs' organ, in 1877.

While in the Llanos, he used giant toads instead of the frogs that du Bois-Reymond's laboratory normally employed to detect electrical activity from electric fish. Sachs studied the electric eel's seeming immunity to its own shocks, and to electricity applied to it. He found that electric eel muscles, when removed from the fish, twitched in the usual way in response to an electric shock. He demonstrated that a discharge could be triggered by stimulating the nerve to the electric organs; and that such a discharge could be blocked with the arrow poison curare. He observed that electric eels gather in groups as water levels fall in the dry season. Abstracts in English.

File:Sachs on Electric Eel 1877.png, Sachs' illustration of what is now called Sachs's organ (in black at 6) in the electric eel, with electric organ discharge patterns (4, 5, 8), 1877
File:Sachs sections and anatomy of electric eel 1881.jpg, Sections and anatomy of electric eel, published posthumously by Sach's employer, Emil du Bois-Reymond, in 1881

Sachs produced an accurate anatomical description of "Sachs's organ", the smallest of the electric eel's three electric organs. He tried to bring six of the fish home on his return journey across the Atlantic, but one died on the voyage back to the port of Bremen, and the rest were harmed on the train journey to Berlin. Accordingly his researches on these specimens were limited to anatomy. The organ is now known to produce a low-voltage discharge used in electrolocation.

He was the first person to write descriptions of the electric organs of the weakly electric '' Gymnotus'' fishes, members of the same family as the electric eel.

Sachs died aged 25 in 1878, not long after returning to Europe, in an accident on Monte Cevedale, Italy.

Works

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References

Further reading

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* {{cite journal , last=Syniawa , first=Mirosław , year=2007 , title=Karl Sachs , journal=Przyroda Górnego Śląska ature of Upper Silesia, issue=49 , language=Polish , ref=none

1878 deaths
19th-century German zoologists