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Sep 9, 2021 · Galvani’s great breakthrough had come on 20 September 1786, when he had discovered – quite by accident – that the spinal cords of a frog carried an electric charge. Galvani believed he had found proof of what he called ‘animal electricity’, an innate force in the body’s nerves. He compared the frog’s muscle fibres to a Leyden jar ...
- Overview
- Early years
- Electrical nature of nerve impulse
Luigi Galvani (born September 9, 1737, Bologna, Papal States [Italy]—died December 4, 1798, Bologna, Cisalpine Republic) Italian physician and physicist who investigated the nature and effects of what he conceived to be electricity in animal tissue. His discoveries led to the invention of the voltaic pile, a kind of battery that makes possible a co...
Galvani followed his father’s preference for medicine by attending the University of Bologna, graduating in 1759. On obtaining the doctor of medicine degree, with a thesis (1762) De ossibus on the formation and development of bones, he was appointed lecturer in anatomy at the University of Bologna and professor of obstetrics at the separate Institu...
Galvani delayed the announcement of his findings until 1791, when he published his essay De Viribus Electricitatis in Motu Musculari Commentarius (Commentary on the Effect of Electricity on Muscular Motion). He concluded that animal tissue contained a heretofore neglected innate, vital force, which he termed “animal electricity,” which activated nerve and muscle when spanned by metal probes. He believed that this new force was a form of electricity in addition to the “natural” form that is produced by lightning or by the electric eel and torpedo ray and to the “artificial” form that is produced by friction (i.e., static electricity). He considered the brain to be the most important organ for the secretion of this “electric fluid” and the nerves to be conductors of the fluid to the nerve and muscle, the tissues of which act as did the outer and inner surfaces of the Leyden jar. The flow of this electric fluid provided a stimulus for the irritable muscle fibres, according to his explanation.
Galvani’s scientific colleagues generally accepted his views, but Alessandro Volta, the outstanding professor of physics at the University of Pavia, was not convinced by the analogy between the muscle and the Leyden jar. Deciding that the frog’s legs served only as an indicating electroscope, he held that the contact of dissimilar metals was the true source of stimulation; he referred to the electricity so generated as “metallic electricity” and decided that the muscle, by contracting when touched by metal, resembled the action of an electroscope. Furthermore, Volta said that, if two dissimilar metals in contact both touched a muscle, agitation would also occur and increase with the dissimilarity of the metals. Thus Volta rejected the idea of an “animal electric fluid,” replying that the frog’s legs responded to differences in metal temper, composition, and bulk. Galvani refuted this by obtaining muscular action with two pieces of the same material. But the ensuing controversy was without personal animosity; Galvani’s gentle nature and Volta’s high principles precluded any harshness between them. Volta, who coined the term galvanism, said of Galvani’s work that “it contains one of the most beautiful and most surprising discoveries.” Nevertheless, partisan groups rallied to both sides.
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Faces of Science
- Bern Dibner
Jun 10, 2019 · Luigi Galvani (September 9, 1737–December 4, 1798) was an Italian physician who demonstrated what we now understand to be the electrical basis of nerve impulses. In 1780, he accidentally made frog muscles twitch by jolting them with a spark from an electrostatic machine. He went on to develop a theory of "animal electricity."
- Mary Bellis
May 1, 2006 · Galvani's experimental attitude blended the long-established Bologna tradition of anatomy (with Malpighi as its main reference), with a new more dynamic approach to the study of organisms: this involved the study of living animal preparations, was based on the new instruments that characterised the physical research of the epoch and reflected the new theoretical interests emerging in post ...
- Marco Piccolino
- 2006
Luigi Galvani (/ ɡ æ l ˈ v ɑː n i /, also US: / ɡ ɑː l-/; Italian: [luˈiːdʒi ɡalˈvaːni]; Latin: Aloysius Galvanus; 9 September 1737 – 4 December 1798) was an Italian physician, physicist, biologist and philosopher, who studied animal electricity. In 1780, he discovered that the muscles of dead frogs' legs twitched when struck by ...
Oct 1, 1997 · As Galvani supposed, animal electricity exists in a state of `disequilibrium', and it is ready to move in response to internal stimuli or following external influences. According to Galvani `…in the animal there is a particular machine capable of generating such disequilibrium, and it will be convenient to refer to this form of electricity as ...
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Luigi Galvani (Fig. 21.1) merits the lion’s share of the credit for expanding the doctrine of animal electricity beyond the singular powers of a few fish, and for doing this in a way that would reshape the life sciences and markedly influence medicine. With Galvani, animal electricity would become the agent of one of the fundamental process ...
