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Galvani thought the spasms were due to electricity in the animal, and produced them at will by touching the nerve of a limb with a rod of zinc, and the muscle with a rod of copper in contact with the zinc.
Ah! my friend, listen; for nearly four months I have studied chemistry that I might talk of it with you. I have read Fourcroy, Lavoisier, Chaptal, Nollet, Rouelle, Berthollet, Gay-Lussac, Spallanzani, Leuwenhoek, Galvani, Volta, in fact, all the books about the science you worship. You can tell me your secrets, I shall understand you."
One relates a miraculous cure he has effected, another tells of a second cure; one mentions his way of speaking, which goes to the heart; another praises his face, which is as good as a sermon; one speaks of his poverty, and another tells of his charities, which are many, in spite of his poverty. There they come from Via Galvani, carabinieri, policemen, prisoners, and the crowd.
As this simple little experiment led eventually to the discovery of galvanic electricity and the invention of the galvanic battery, it may be regarded as the beginning of modern electricity. The story is told that Galvani was led to his discovery while preparing frogs' legs to make a broth for his invalid wife.
Let her soul be baptized into the spirit of God, let his glory be the seal of her deeds, and she shall at length join that great company, who "neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God." Christianity a bond of union. Why woman was created. Her influence on Society; on Intellectual Culture. Madame Galvani. Miss Herschel. The Mother's Influence. Bonaparte's Remark.
Whilst Galvani persisted in this mistake until his death, Volta realized that the source of the electric force, as in the first of Galvani's observations, must still be sought outside the specimens, and himself rightly attributed it to the contacting metals.
In this short address there is no time to speak of other sciences, and to point out the particular evidence furnished by each to establish the dominion of law, nor to more than mention the name of Descartes, the first who undertook to give an explanation of the celestial motions, or who formed the vast and philosophic conception of reducing all the phenomena of the universe to the same law; of Montaigne, one of the heroes of common sense; of Galvani, whose experiments gave the telegraph to the world; of Voltaire, who contributed more than any other of the sons of men to the destruction of religious intolerance; of August Comte, whose genius erected to itself a monument that still touches the stars; of Guttenberg, Watt, Stephenson, Arkwright, all soldiers of science in the grand army of the dead kings.
In his prophetic soul he smiled, turned to the open window, and gazed upon the great planet. A small band of workmen was coming towards Via della Marmorata, It was about noon, and they had been at work on a house in course of construction in Via Galvani.
To which his reply was, "What is the use of a child? It may become a man!" When Galvani discovered that a frog's leg twitched when placed in contact with different metals, it could scarcely have been imagined that so apparently insignificant a fact could have led to important results.
Volta was one of these, and he also furnished, as will hereafter be seen, a name for one of the units of electrical measurement. Both Galvani and Volta passed into shadow, when, in 1820, Professor H. C. Oersted, of Copenhagen, discovered the law upon which were afterwards slowly built the electrical appliances of modern life.
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