LUIGI GALVANI AND ALLESSANDRO VOLTA 163 



point of contact of the different, non-living conductors of 

 electricity act as sources of electricity in just the same way - 

 by mutual production of charge - as Galvani had imagined to 

 be the case with nerves and muscles. He was also able to 

 throw some light upon the relationship between nerve and 

 muscle. Nevertheless, Galvani's conclusion regarding ani- 

 mal electricity is also justified, as cannot be doubted in the 

 least according to our present knowledge - although the rela- 

 tionship between electricity and life is hardly any clearer 

 to-day than in Galvani's time. 



Galvani was fifty-four years of age at the time of the publi- 

 cation of this essay. He also took part later in the discus- 

 sion; but his later years were disturbed by great events. 

 Napoleon Bonaparte had entered north Italy in 1796 as 

 victor, and founded the Cisalpine Republic, to which also 

 Bologna, Galvani's place of residence - hitherto in the Papal 

 States - was to belong. Galvani refused to take the oath of 

 allegiance to the new constitution, and was then declared 

 removed from all his offices. Though sensible people were 

 able to bring about his reappointment, which was then 

 arranged for the commencement of 1799, he died just 

 before this, in December 1798, at the age of sixty-one. 



Volta was born in Como, of an highly esteemed family, 

 became teacher of physics at the High School of his native 

 town at the age of twenty-nine, and was called in 1779 to the 

 University of Pavia. He travelled much at this time, first in 

 Switzerland, where he became acquainted with Voltaire, 

 who greatly impressed him; later to Paris, where he 

 made friends with Lavoisier and Laplace; to Germany, 

 and to England, where he met Priestley. Volta, who 

 had a rare gift for experiment, undoubtedly began very 

 early to acquire a thorough knowledge and a profound per- 

 sonal understanding of everything known at the time con- 

 cerning electrical phenomena. Very famous for a long time 



