Vital and Physical Motion. 1 2 3 



tricity ; and in order to see whether they would do so 

 or not, they were suspended, by means of small hooks 

 of iron wire, upon certain iron bars or stays which 

 stretched horizontally across the chords of the arched 

 openings by which three sides of the belvedere were 

 pierced. The time was a calm and cloudless evening in 

 which there seemed to be little chance of meeting with 

 any of the latter discharges ; and yet the limbs were 

 found to jump whenever the iron hooks by which they 

 were suspended were pressed . upon by the finger, and 

 not un frequently when they were let alone. Describing 

 what happened, Galvani says, 'Ranas itaque consueto 

 more paratas uncino ferreo earum spinali medulla per- 

 forata atque appensa, septembris initio (1786) die ves- 

 perascente supra parapetto horizontaliter collocavimus. 

 Uncinus ferream laminam tangebat : en motus in rana 

 spontanei, varii, haud infrequentes. Si digito uncinulum 

 adversus ferream superficiem premeretur, quiescentes 

 excitabantur, et toties ferme quoties hujusmodi pressio 

 adhiberetur.'* The house, the wooden flight of steps 

 leading from the principal staircase to the belvedere, the 

 belvedere itself, the iron bars upon which the limbs were 

 suspended, are still there, or were there the other day 

 when I made a pilgrimage to the spot ; and even the 

 presence of Galvani himself may be recalled by the help 

 of a portrait which hangs in the open landing upon the 

 wall facing the locked entrance to the stairs leading to the 

 belvedere. In this place, and in this way, was the dis- 

 covery made which is commemorated on the slab in the 

 front of the house as the well-head of wonders for all 

 ages, ' fonte di maraviglie a tutti secoli,' and of which, 

 a short time before the close of the last century, the 

 illustrious author of Cosmos wrote, ' le nom de Galvani 



* " De Viribus Electricitatis in motu musculari Commentarjus," 1791. 



