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In that older time it was the custom to combine the study of philosophy and medicine. For centuries after that period in Italy it was the custom for men to take both degrees, the doctorate in philosophy and in medicine at the same time. Indeed, most of those whose work has made them famous, down to and including Galvani, did so.
These two pieces of metal form the basic principle of the modern galvanic battery, and led directly to Alessandro Volta's invention of his "voltaic pile," the immediate ancestor of the modern galvanic battery. Volta's experiments were carried on at the same time as those of Galvani, and his invention of his pile followed close upon Galvani's discovery of the new form of electricity.
"A complete knowledge of all the mysteries which have been gradually unfolded from the days of Galvani to those of Faraday, and of many others which are still inscrutable to us, is exhibited in this structure." Well may Mr. Darwin say, "It is impossible to conceive by what steps these wondrous organs have been produced.
For what I observed is like the tiny spark from the rubbed piece of amber, like the contraction of the muscles of the dead frog that Galvani observed a small phenomenon that the unbelieving ridicules, but in which the wise sees the germ of new, never-guessed-at conceptions and deeds.
But be this story authentic or not, it is certain that Galvani experimented for several years upon frogs' legs suspended upon wires and hooks, until he finally constructed his arc of two different metals, which, when arranged so that one was placed in contact with a nerve and the other with a muscle, produced violent contractions.
He and his party reached the sea at last. The National Guard of Boulogne began firing on them. The prince, Count Persigny, Colonel Voisin, and Galvani, an Italian, were put into a boat. As they pushed off, a fire of musketry shattered the little skiff, and threw them into the water. Colonel Voisin's arm was broken at the elbow, and Galvani was hit in the body.
There are many stories of the details of the ordinarily entirely unimportant circumstances that led to Galvanism and the Galvanic Battery. Volta actually made this battery, then known as the Voltaic Pile, but he made it because of Galvani's discovery. The reader is requested to bear these names in mind; Galvani and Volta. They have a unique claim upon us.
Charmed by the recent and brilliant discoveries of M. Galvani in electricity, he next entered with ardour into that new branch of science; and, not content with studying it in the abstract, he made a great variety of curious experiments on the effects of galvanism on his own person, and published the result in two octavos, at Berlin, in 1796, enriched by the notes of the celebrated naturalist Blümenbach.
Whilst Volta's success was based on avoiding Galvani's error, his apparatus nevertheless turned out inadvertently to be a close counterpart of precisely that animal organ which Galvani had in mind when misinterpreting his own discoveries!
If in the last century such men as Galvani and Volta had been moved by any other motive than love of penetrating the secrets of nature they would never have pursued the seemingly useless experiments they did, and the foundation of electrical science would not have been laid.
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