CHAP. VII., 1.] 



ELECTRICITY. GALVANI. 



161 



racter and circumstances were sufficiently marked. 

 Galvani was a professional anatomist and physiolo- 

 gist ; Volta a physicist. Galvani was little known, 

 and had probably travelled little beyond the province 

 in which he resided ; Volta was personally and ad- 

 vantageously known in Paris and London. Galvani, 

 soon after his discovery, fell into undeserved political 

 disgrace, which undermined his health ; Volta lived 

 to an advanced age, his experiments and discoveries 

 rewarded by every honour which not only academic 

 authority could bestow, but which the almost uni- 

 versal sway of Napoleon could render to his genius. 

 Galvani died prematurely, and whilst his best obser- 

 vations were contested ; Volta survived to nearly 

 the latest term of human life, having witnessed the 

 fruits of his great invention in the splendid disco- 

 veries of Davy and Oersted. 



(731.) The biographical particulars of Galvani's life may 

 be passed over in a few words. The history of his 

 discoveries has been recently matei'ially enlarged and 

 corrected, by the researches of the Academy of Bo- 

 logna to which he belonged, and especially by those 

 of Professor Gherardi ; it forms, together with his 

 collected writings, a ponderous quarto volume. 1 The 

 diffuseness of the commentary, and that of Galvani's 

 writings also, is a defect in this compilation, which 

 tends to weaken the unquestionable force of the evi- 

 dence in his favour. 



(732.) LUIGI GALVANI was born in 1737, and was 



Jalvani's promote a i n 1762 to the chair of anatomy at Bo- 

 irstexperi-f i , i ,1 <? .1 



nentson logna, his native place, the seat or a most cele- 



he Ner- brated university. He studied and taught his science 

 ous Sys- w j t ^ gj. ea t success, and published several memoirs. 

 Probably he would have become still more widely 

 known, but that he was anticipated in some of his 

 observations (particularly on the organ of hearing) 

 by the celebrated Scarpa ; in consequence of which, 

 Galvani, with his customary modesty, suppressed 

 what had already become known through that able 

 anatomist. As early at least as 1780 (as we learn 

 from the researches of Gherardi, and the MSS. of 

 Galvani himself), he made experiments on muscu- 

 lar contractions taking place by electric influence 

 from the electrical machine, the electrophorus, and 

 the Leyden phial. 2 The experiments were made 

 on frogs in particular. This was ten years antece- 

 dent to the commonly alleged casual discovery of 

 galvanism. The experiments were continued in 1781 

 and 1782, when he drew up a paper (not published) 



" On the Nervous Force and its relation to Electri- 

 city." 3 In 1786 he pursued the enquiry, with the 

 aid of his nephew Camillo Galvani ; and the effect 

 of thunder-storms in occasioning muscular contrac- 

 tions in the frog (which he had previously noticed), 

 was farther studied. He then designated the pre- 

 pared frog as "the most delicate electrometer yet and on 

 discovered."* But this year was also the one o ff lectricit y 

 his real discovery, namely, that muscular contrac- ^ 

 tions are sometimes occasioned by causes remote it. 

 from any then known to be connected with electricity. 

 Camillo Galvani, pursuing his uncle's experiments 

 on Atmospheric Electricity, had prepared some frogs, 

 by dividing them about the middle, and detaching a 

 portion of the lumbar nerves from the integuments, 

 leaving them in contact with a portion of the verte- 

 bral column which was then suspended by an iron 

 hook. These prepared frogs were lying horizontally 

 on the top of an iron rail of a balcony on the third 

 floor of Galvani's house, where he was in the habit of 

 observing the effects of atmospheric electricity. The 

 nephew noticed that when the hook or the vertebrae 

 were pressed on the rail by the finger or otherwise, 

 muscular contractions ensued, which he pointed out to 

 his uncle, who lost no time in repeating the observa- 

 tion, which seems to have been made early in Sep- 

 tember 1786. 5 His experiments in this and the fol- 

 lowing month are detailed, with the exact dates still 

 preserved, with this remarkable title in Galvani's 

 hand- writing, Esperimenti circa I'Eletricitct del 

 Metalli; and the results are formally drawn up 

 in a Latin Dissertation of 62 pages, bearing date 

 30th October 1786, forming the substance of the 

 most important section of his Commentary on the 

 Electric Forces, &c., published five years later, but 

 differing from it in some important particulars. 6 

 Thus it appears distinctly, that one metal alone 

 iron was used in producing the convulsion; 7 

 whilst in the printed Commentary, the hooks are 

 said to be of brass or of copper. The explanation is, 

 that Galvani having become aware of the superior 

 efficacy of unlike metals in contact, described the ex- 

 periment, not as it was first made, but as it might be 

 made with greater certainty. Yet, singularly enough, 

 this Dissertation is entitled, De animali Electrici- 

 tate" showing, that in the short space of a few weeks, 

 he had abandoned his earlier notion of themetals being 

 the source of the electricity, and ascribed the effects 

 to the proper electricity of the nerves and muscles. 



1 Opere edite ed ine.dite del profeseore Luigi Galvani, raccolte e pubblicate per euro, delV Accademia delle Scienze del? Institute di 

 Bologna. Bologna, 1841. The copy which I use belongs to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 



2 Rapporto, &c., p. 11 (in the work above cited). 3 Ib. p. 18. 



4 Ib. p. 30. The expression is remarkable, because Volta is often regarded as the first who considered the frog in the aspect 

 of a mere electroscope. 



6 Rapporto, pp. 33, 36. 6 Ib. p. 35, 36. It were to be desired that this MS. were published in full. 



7 The passage from the MS. is conclusive, " Ranas itaque consueto more paratas uncino ferreo earum spinali medulla perfo- 

 rata atque appensa, Septembris initio [1786] die vesperascente supra parapetto horizontaliter collocavimus. Uncinus ferream 

 laminam (namely, the top of the iron parapet or rail) tangebat ; en motus in rana spontanei, varii, baud infrequentes ! Si digito 

 uncinulum adversus ferream Buperficiem premeretur, qiuiescentes excitabantur et toties ferae quoties hujusmodi pressio adhi- 

 beretur." Rapporto, p. 36. 



