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GALVANI, LUIGI (1737-1798)
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See also:GALVANI, See also:LUIGI (1737-1798) , See also:Italian physiologist, after whom galvanism received its name, was See also:born at See also:Bologna on the 9th of See also:September •1737. It was his wish in See also:early See also:life to enter the hurch, but by his parents he was educated for a medical career. At the university of Bologna, in which See also:city he practised, he was in 1762 appointed public lecturer in See also:anatomy, and soon gained repute as a skilled though not eloquent teacher, and, chiefly from his researches on the See also:organs of See also:hearing and genito-urinary See also:tract of birds, as a See also:comparative anatomist. His celebrated theory of See also:animal See also:electricity he enunciated in a See also:treatise, " De viribus electricitatis in motu musculari commentarius;" published in the 7th See also:volume of the See also:memoirs of the See also:Institute of Sciences at Bologna in 1791, and separately at See also:Modena in the following See also:year, and elsewhere subsequently. The statement has frequently been repeated that, in 1786, Galvani had noticed that the See also:leg of a skinned See also:frog, on being accidentally touched by a scalpel which had lain near an See also:electrical See also:machine, was thrown into violent See also:convulsions; and that it was thus that his See also:attention was first directed to the relations of animal functions to electricity. Fromdocuments in the See also:possession of the Institute of Bologna, however, it appears that twenty- years previous to the publication of his Commentary Galvani was already engaged in investigations as to the See also:action of electricity upon the muscles of frogs. The observation that the suspension of. certain of these animals on an See also:iron railing by See also:copper hooks caused twitching in the muscles of their legs led him to the invention of his metallic arc, the first experiment with which is described in the third See also:part of the Commentary, with the date September 20, 1786. The arc he constructed of two different metals; which, placed in contact the one with a frog's See also:nerve and the other with a muscle, caused contraction of the latter. In Galvani's view the motions of the muscle were the result of the See also:union, by means of the metallic arc, of its exterior or negative electrical See also:charge with See also:positive electricity which proceeded along the nerve from its inner substance. See also:Volta, on the other See also:hand, attributed them solely to the effect of electricity having its source in the junction of the two dissimilar metals of the arc, and regarded the nerve and muscle simply as conductors. On Galvani's refusal, from religious scruples, to take the See also:oath of See also:allegiance to the Cisalpine See also:republic in 1797, he was removed from his professorship. Deprived thus of the means of livelihood, he retired to the See also:house of his See also:brother Giacomo; where he soon See also:fell into a feverish decline. The republican See also:government, in See also:consideration of his See also:great scientific fame, eventually, but too See also:late, determined to reinstate him in his See also:chair, and he died at Bologna on the 4th of See also:December 1798. A See also:quarto edition of his See also:works was published at Bologna in 1841-1842, by the See also:Academy of Sciences of the Institute of that city, under the See also:title Opere edite ed inedite del professore Luigi Galvani. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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