33

The History of Bioelectromagnetism

similar occurred, it was not possible to observe any muscular motions or contractions. Results of

this sort both brought us no slight amazement and began to arouse some suspicion about inherent

animal electricity itself. Moreover both were increased by the circuit of very thin nervous fuid

which by chance we observed to be produced from the nerves to the muscles, when the phenom­

enon occurred, and which resembled the electric circuit which is discharged in the Leyden jar.

Green (1953)

Tis third part is most important, from which Galvani showed the existence of animal electricity with

the demonstration of muscular contractions in frogs without the use of metals. Tis led to the contro­

versy with Volta. Volta judged that Galvani’s conclusion was a wrong idea. At the end of this third part,

Galvani insisted on the existence of animal electricity, perfectly based on the experimental results. Te

fourth part of his publication begins as follows: From what is known and explored thus far, I think it is

sufciently established that there is electricity in animals, which, with Bartholinus and others, we may

be permitted to call by the general name of animal electricity (Green, 1953). Galvani’s theory was fnally

summarized as follows:

it would perhaps be a not inept hypothesis and conjecture, nor altogether deviating from the truth,

which should compare a muscle fber to a small Leyden jar, or other similar electric body, charged

with two opposite kinds of electricity; but should liken the nerve to the conductor, and therefore

compare the whole muscle with the assemblage of Leyden jars.

Green (1953)

Te conjectures in fourth part are summarized: one of his suggestions is the use of electricity for the cure

of certain nervous diseases such as various forms of paralysis (Potamian and Walsh, 1909). Tese experi­

ments by Galvani became the center of electrophysiology and bioelectricity. Although Galvani showed

animal electricity by his own experiments using animal tissue, Volta repeated Galvani’s experiments

and confrmed the conclusion of Galvani’s experiments, existence of animal electricity. However, Volta

did not believe Galvani’s explanation. Te observed muscle contraction was the result of electricity gen­

erated by two dissimilar metals. Volta attempted to show that the combination of two diferent metals

generates the electric current. Volta proposed in 1794, the theory of “metallic electricity,” in which elec­

tricity was generated by the contact between two kinds of metal in electrolyte. Galvani’s work published

in 1791 caused a great sensation. As mentioned above, Alessandro Guiseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta

(1745–1825) was inspired by Galvani’s work. He was born in Como, Lombardy, Duchy of Milan in 1745.

At the time when Galvani published his work, Volta was already a well-known professor in his work for

the invention of the electrophorus and straw electrometer, etc. He was a professor of Natural Physics at

the University of Pavia, in 1779. He traveled much through Europe, frst from Switzerland to Paris where

he met Antoine Lavoisier and Pierre Simon de Laplace (1749–1827), a French astronomer and mathema­

tician, and to Germany, and to England where he met Joseph Priestley. Volta invented and built the frst

battery called the Volta battery (Voltaic pile). A Voltaic pile produces a continuous electric current. Tis

pile consists of an equal number of copper and zinc discs separated by circular plates of cloth, paper, or

pasteboard soaked in salt water or dilute acid (Mottelay, 1922). Volta demonstrated his battery before

Napoleon I (1769–1822) in Paris. Napoleon made Volta a count and senator of the kingdom of Lombardy.

Trough the observation of the contraction of isolated frog nerve-muscle preparations, Galvani found

that the electricity was generated within the body of the animal, and called this electricity, animal elec­

tricity. Trough the discussion between Galvani and Volta, Volta invented the voltaic pile.

Giovanni Aldini, his mother was the sister of Luigi Galvani, was accepted as a professor of experimen­

tal physics with no medical background, at the University of Bologna in 1798. He was also a researcher

in the engineering feld such as the construction of lighthouses and their illumination, and protection

of human life and materials from destruction by fre. He applied the frst electric stimulation from a