Galvanism is a term invented by the late 18th-century physicist and chemist
Alessandro Volta
Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta (, ; ; 18 February 1745 – 5 March 1827) was an Italian chemist and physicist who was a pioneer of electricity and Power (physics), power, and is credited as the inventor of the electric battery a ...
to refer to the generation of electric current by chemical action.
The term also came to refer to the discoveries of its namesake,
Luigi Galvani
Luigi Galvani ( , , ; ; 9 September 1737 – 4 December 1798) was an Italian physician, physicist, biologist and philosopher who studied animal electricity. In 1780, using a frog, he discovered that the muscles of dead frogs' legs twitched when ...
, specifically the generation of electric current within biological organisms and the contraction/convulsion of biological muscle tissue upon contact with electric current.
While Volta theorized and later demonstrated the phenomenon of his "Galvanism" to be replicable with otherwise inert materials, Galvani thought his discovery to be a confirmation of the existence of "animal electricity," a vital force which gave life to organic matter.
History
Johann Georg Sulzer

Galvanic phenomena were described in the literature before it was understood that they were of an electrical nature. In 1752, when the Swiss mathematician and physicist
Johann Georg Sulzer placed his tongue between a piece of lead and a piece of silver, joined at their edges, he perceived a taste similar to that of
iron(II) sulfate
Iron(II) sulfate or ferrous sulfate (British English: sulphate instead of sulfate) denotes a range of salts with the formula Fe SO4·''x''H2O. These compounds exist most commonly as the heptahydrate (''x'' = 7), but several values for ...
. Neither of the metals alone produced this taste. He realized that the contact between the metals probably did not produce a solution of either on the tongue. He did, however, not realize that this was an electrical phenomenon. He concluded that the contact between the metals caused their particles to vibrate, producing this taste by stimulating the nerves of the tongue.
Luigi Galvani

According to popular legend, Galvani discovered the effects of electricity on muscle tissue when investigating an unrelated phenomenon which required skinned frogs in the 1780s and 1790s. His assistant is claimed to have accidentally touched a scalpel to the sciatic nerve of the frog and this resulted in a spark and animation of its legs. This was building on the theories of
Giovanni Battista Beccaria,
Felice Fontana,
Leopoldo Marco Antonio Caldani, and .
Galvani was investigating the effects of distant atmospheric electricity (lightning) on prepared frog legs when he discovered the legs convulsed not only when lightning struck but also when he pressed the brass hooks attached to the frog's spinal cord to the iron railing they were suspended from. In his laboratory, Galvani later discovered that he could replicate this phenomenon by touching metal electrodes of brass connected to the frog's spinal cord to an iron plate. He concluded that this was proof of "animal electricity," the electric power which animated living things.
Alessandro Volta
Alessandro Volta, a contemporary physicist, believed that the effect was explicable not by any vital force but rather it was the presence of two different metals that was generating the electricity. Volta demonstrated his theory by creating the first chemical electric battery. Despite their differences in opinion, Volta named the phenomenon of the chemical generation of electricity "Galvanism" after Galvani.
Galvani publishes his work
On March 27, 1791, Galvani published a book about his work on animal electricity. It contained comprehensive details of his 11 years of research and experimentation on the topic.
The 1797 edition of ''
Gren’s Grundriss der Naturlehre'' provides the first explicit definition of 'galvanism' as clearly reflecting Volta’s opinion in the following terms:
Galvani from Bologna was the first to observe muscular motions elicited by the contact between two different metals; after him, the phenomena of this sort were termed and included under the name of Galvanism.
Giovanni Aldini
Giovanni Aldini, Galvani's nephew, continued his uncle's work after Luigi Galvani died in 1798. In 1803, Aldini performed a famous public demonstration of the electro-stimulation technique of deceased limbs on the corpse of an executed criminal
George Foster at
Newgate in
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
. The Newgate Calendar describes what happened when the galvanic process was used on the body:
Galvani has been called the father of
. The debate between Galvani and Volta "would result in the creation of electrophysiology, electromagnetism, electrochemistry and the electric battery."
Scientific and intellectual legacy
Literature
Mary Shelley's ''
Frankenstein
''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 Gothic novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a Sapience, sapient Frankenstein's monster, crea ...
'', wherein a man stitches together a human body from corpses and brings it to life, was inspired in part by the theory and demonstrations of Galvanism which may have been conducted by
James Lind
James Lind (4 October 1716 – 13 July 1794) was a Scottish physician. He was a pioneer of naval hygiene in the Royal Navy. By conducting one of the first ever clinical trials, he developed the theory that citrus fruits cured scurvy.
Lind ...
. Although the Creature was described in later works as a composite of whole body parts grafted together from cadavers and reanimated by the use of electricity, this description is not consistent with Shelley's work; both the use of electricity and the cobbled-together image of Frankenstein's monster were more the result of James Whale's popular
1931 film adaptation of the story.
Abiogenesis
Galvanism influenced metaphysical thought in the domain of
abiogenesis
Abiogenesis is the natural process by which life arises from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. The prevailing scientific hypothesis is that the transition from non-living to living entities on Earth was not a single even ...
, the underlying process of the generation of living forms. In 1836,
Andrew Crosse recorded what he referred to as "the perfect insect, standing erect on a few bristles which formed its tail," as having appeared during an experiment wherein he used electricity to produce mineral crystals. While Crosse himself never claimed to have generated the insects, even in private, the scientific world at the time viewed the connection between life and electricity to be sufficiently clear that he received threats against his life for this "blasphemy."
Medicine
Giovanni Aldini is claimed to have applied Galvanic principles (application of electricity to biological organisms) in successfully alleviating the symptoms of "several cases of insanity", and with "complete success". Today,
electroconvulsive therapy
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a psychiatry, psychiatric treatment that causes a generalized seizure by passing electrical current through the brain. ECT is often used as an intervention for mental disorders when other treatments are inadequ ...
is used as a treatment option for severely depressed pregnant mothers
(as it is the least harmful for the developing fetus) and people suffering treatment-resistant
major depressive disorder
Major depressive disorder (MDD), also known as clinical depression, is a mental disorder characterized by at least two weeks of pervasive depression (mood), low mood, low self-esteem, and anhedonia, loss of interest or pleasure in normally ...
. It is found to be effective for half of those who receive treatment while the other half may relapse within 12 months.
The modern application of electricity to the human body for medical diagnostics and treatments is practiced under the term
. This includes the monitoring of the electric activity of the heart, muscles, and even the brain, respectively termed
electrocardiography
Electrocardiography is the process of producing an electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG), a recording of the heart's electrical activity through repeated cardiac cycles.
It is an electrogram of the heart which is a graph of voltage versus time of t ...
,
electromyography
Electromyography (EMG) is a technique for evaluating and recording the electrical activity produced by skeletal muscles. EMG is performed using an instrument called an electromyograph to produce a record called an electromyogram. An electromyo ...
, and
electrocorticography
Electrocorticography (ECoG), a type of intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG), is a type of electrophysiological monitoring that uses electrodes placed directly on the exposed surface of the brain to record electrical activity from the cer ...
.
See also
*
Action potential
An action potential (also known as a nerve impulse or "spike" when in a neuron) is a series of quick changes in voltage across a cell membrane. An action potential occurs when the membrane potential of a specific Cell (biology), cell rapidly ri ...
*
Bioelectromagnetics
*
Electrochemistry
Electrochemistry is the branch of physical chemistry concerned with the relationship between Electric potential, electrical potential difference and identifiable chemical change. These reactions involve Electron, electrons moving via an electronic ...
*
Electrohomeopathy
Electrohomeopathy, also called electrohomoeopathy, electropathy or the Mattei cancer cure, is a historical proposed alternative to miasma theory and then-increasingly popular germ theory, as well as associated techniques. Invented in the 19th ce ...
*
Electrotherapy
*
Electrotherapy (cosmetic)
*
Hallerian physiology, for a counter-theory to Galvanism
References
External links
The history of galvanism
{{Authority control
Electrochemistry
Muscular system