238 HISTORY OF GALVANISM. 



The first step in this career of discovery was that made by Galvani ; 

 Professor of Anatomy at Bologna. In 1790, electricity, as an experi- 

 mental science, was nearly stationary. The impulse given to its pro- 

 gress by the splendid phenomena of the Leyclen phial had almost died 

 away ; Coulomb \vas employed in systematizing the theory of the elec- 

 tric fluid, as shown by its statical effects ; but in all the other parts of 

 the subject, no great principle or new result had for some time been 

 detected. The first announcement of Galvani's discovery in 1791 

 excited great notice, for it was given forth as a manifestation of elec- 

 tricity under a new and remarkable character ; namely, as residing in 

 the muscles of animals. 1 The limbs of a dissected frog were observed 



o 



to move, when touched with pieces of two different metals ; the agent 

 which produced these motions Avas conceived to be identified with 

 electricity, and was termed animal electricity and Galvani's experi- 

 ments were repeated, with various modifications, in all parts of Europe, 

 exciting much curiosity, and giving rise to many speculations. 



It is our business to determine the character of each great discovery 

 which appears in the progress of science. Men are fond of repeating 

 that such discoveries are most commonly the result of accident ; and 

 we have seen reason to reject this opinion, since that preparation of 

 thought by which the accident produces discovery is the most impor- 

 tant of the conditions on which the successful event depends. Such 

 accidents are like a spark which discharges a gun already loaded and 

 pointed. In the case of Galvani, indeed, the discovery may, with more 

 propriety than usual, be said to have been casual ; but in the form 

 in which it was first noted, it exhibited no important novelty. His 

 frog was lying on a table near the conductor of an electrical machine, 

 and the convulsions appeared only when a spark was taken from the 

 machine. If Galvani had been as good a physicist as he was an anato- 

 mist, he would probably have seen that the movements so occasioned 

 proved only that the muscles or nerves, or the two together, formed a 

 very sensitive indicator of electrical action. It was when he produced 

 such motions by contact of metals alone, that he obtained an impor- 

 tant and fundamental fact in science. 



The analysis of this fact into its real and essential conditions was 

 the work of Alexander Volta, another Italian professor. Volta, indeed, 

 possessed that knowledge of the subject of electricity which made a 

 hint like that of Galvani the basis of a new science. Galvani appears 



Viribus Elcctrids in Jlotu Musculari Conim. Bonon. t. vii. 1792. 



