Ehge of Alexander Volta. 17 



Some of these animals, already stripped of their skin by Ma- 

 dame Galvani's cook, were lying on a table, when an electrical 

 machine was accidentally discharged at a distance. The muscles 

 contracted strongly when the electrical spark issued, although it 

 did not reach them. The experiment, on being repeated, suc- 

 ceeded equally well with every kind of animal, with artificial or 

 natural electricity, either positive or negative. 



This phenomenon was very simple. If it had presented itself 

 to some skilful natural philosopher, familiar with the properties of 

 the electrical fluid, it would scarcely have attracted his attention. 

 The extreme sensibility of the frog as an electroscope, might in- 

 deed have been the subject of some remarks, but it would have 

 been carried no further. Happily, and by a rare exception ^ de- 

 ficiency of knowledge in this case became profitable. Galvani, 

 though an expert anatomist, knew little of electricity. The mus- 

 cular movements which he had observed, appeared to him inex- 

 plicable, and he thought himself transported to a new world. 

 He hastened to vary his experiments in every possible manner. 

 In this way he discovered the singular fact, that the limbs of a 

 frog, long after it has been decapitated, undergo great contrac- 

 tions, without the intervention of any foreign electricity, when a 

 metallic plate, or, what is still better, two plates of different 

 kinds of metal, are interposed between a muscle and a nerve. 

 The astonishment of the Professor of Bologna was therefore per- 

 fectly warrantable, and he shared it with all the rest of Europe. 



An experiment which caused the legs, thighs, and trunk of 

 an animal which had for many hours been torn in pieces, under- 

 go great convulsions, leap to a distance, and appear restored to 

 life, could not continue long insulated. By analyzing it in all 

 its details, Galvani imagined that he perceived in it the effects of 

 a Leyden phial. According to him, animals are, as it were, re- 

 servoirs of electrical fluid. The positive electricity has its seat 

 in the nerves,^and the negative electricity in the muscles. With 

 regard to the metallic plate placed between these organs, it was 

 merely the conductor by which the discharge was effected. 



These views seduced the public ; they were adopted by phy- 

 siologists, and electricity dethroned the nervous fluid, which had 

 occupied such a prominent place in explaining the phenomena 



VOL. XVI. KO. XXXI. — JANUARY 1834, B 



