130 Frogs and their Contributions to Science. 



who may be -con wiggling along through life in the tad- 

 pole state, and whose transition to a higher grade of social 

 being, although earnestly striven tor, cannot possibly 1"' 

 accomplished under one or two generations. 



Saving spoken of frogs anatomically, physiologically, 



and in a measure, aesthetically, it remains tor lis to speak of 

 them historically in connection with important discoveries 

 in science to which they have contributed. 



In 1770, at Bologna, Italy, in his own domestic labora- 

 tory, a tall, thoughtrul-browed professor was busy testing 

 and watching the manifestations oi that mysterious agent, 

 electricity, to the study of which the learned men of 

 Europe, incited by the discoveries of our own Franklin, 

 were just then giving especial attention. Perhaps to 

 cheer his weary brain, perhaps to worry him with some 

 trifling household topic, his wife hearing in her hand a 

 plateful of dressed frogs' legs tarries on her way to the 

 kitchen. The professor stops the turning of his cumber- 

 some machine to listen, the wife sets down her plate to 

 talk. It might have happened in a dozen ways, but the 

 startling fact was then first remarked, that contact with 

 the metallic conducting rod threw the frogs' legs into 

 violent convulsions. Although as yet uncooked, they 

 were food indeed for the professor. The germ of discovery 

 had here its inception, and began its growth in his mind. 

 From that day the laboratory consumed more frogs than 

 the kitchen. After a year's patient experimenting, there 

 was announced to the scientiiic world in 1791, the re- 

 markable discovery of the electrical effect produced by the 

 contact of animal parts with metallic substances, in a 

 publication entitled, Aloysii Qnlvani, <lc Viriims KUdrici- 

 totfis in Motu Mu8cidari, Oommentarius. 



Since that time the earth lias been girdled with the 

 name and the fame of Galvani. His discovery was the start- 

 ing point for numberless experiments on frogs and metal-, 



