Electrifying Legacies: Galvani, Volta, and the Sparks of Scientific Revolution

In 1786, Luigi Galvani must have experienced profound astonishment as he witnessed the vigorous contractions of a deceased frog's leg. Having conducted experiments on frog physiology with electricity for the past decade, he was familiar with such contractions. However, on this particular day, his assistant, using a metal scalpel, touched the exposed nerve of a dissected leg left on a table from a prior experiment. Galvani, an Italian physician and faculty member at the University of Bologna's medical school, observed that when two different metals made contact with a nerve or muscle, it generated an electric current, causing the muscle to contract.

Based on these experiments, Galvani, a respected anatomist and physiologist, theorized the existence of an electrical fluid in nerves and muscles, akin to electricity, which he termed "animal electricity." He proposed that an electrical field generated in the brain traveled through the blood from nerves to muscles, inducing contractions. Alessandro Volta, an Italian physics professor at the University of Pavia, initially supported Galvani's ideas but later became skeptical and opposed them. Volta accepted the results but rejected the concept of animal electricity, instead attributing the phenomenon to the generation of current when different metals come into contact. He termed this "metallic electricity" Galvanism.

Both Galvani and Volta significantly influenced the trajectory of science. Galvani's work delved into electrophysiology, exploring the electrical properties of living cells, while Volta's studies led to the creation of the voltaic pile, an early form of a battery. The terms "galvanize" and the electrical unit "volt" were later named in their honor. Galvani's nephew, Giovanni Aldini, a physics professor, continued his uncle's experiments. In 1803, Aldini conducted a widely publicized demonstration, using electrical stimulation to animate the limb of a deceased criminal. Although Mary Shelley did not explicitly mention this connection, some suggest that her novel "Frankenstein" (1818) was inspired by Aldini's endeavors in human reanimation.

A depiction of Dr. Frankenstein's unnamed monster from a 1831 edition of the novel, brought to life through the force of a potent electrical current.