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We have but quite lately discovered it, we know only that its existence can no longer be denied; but, as for all the rest, we are at much the same stage as that whereat Galvani was when he gave life to the muscles of his dead frogs with two little plates of metal which roused the jeers of the scientists of his time, but contained the germ of all the wonders, of electricity.
A French Protestant refugee, Tabinet, first made 'tabinet' in Dublin; another Frenchman, Goulard, a physician of Montpellier, gave his to the soothing lotion, not unknown in our nurseries. The 'tontine' was conceived by Tonti, an Italian; another Italian, Galvani, first noted the phenomena of animal electricity or 'galvanism'; while a third, Volta, lent a title to the 'voltaic' battery.
Galvani, the discoverer of animal electricity, and Volta, the inventor of the galvanic pile, stimulated others to fruitful experiments in this branch of study. There were two classes of geologists, the Neptunians, or Wernerians, who ascribed rocks to aqueous deposition exclusively; and the Vulcanians, or Huttonists, adherents of the view of Dr. The Geological Society of London was founded in 1807.
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.
The discoveries of Volta and Galvani were in like manner independent of theory; the greatest discoveries consisting in bringing to light certain grand facts, on which theories are afterwards framed. Our inventor had been pursuing the Baconian method, though he did not think of that, but of inventing a safe lamp, which he knew could only be done through the process of repeated experiment.
The thing takes us all the way back to Galvani, who was the first to observe and study animal electricity. The heart makes only one three-thousandth of a volt of electricity at each beat. It would take over two hundred thousand men to light one of these incandescent lamps, two million or more to run a trolley- car.
We also showed him the effect of the contact of heterogeneous metals on the nerves of frogs. The name of Galvani and Volta had not previously been heard in those vast solitudes. Next to his electrical apparatus, the work of the industry and intelligence of an inhabitant of the Llanos, nothing at Calabozo excited in us so great an interest as the gymnoti, which are animated electrical apparatuses.
Its twin Champollions came in Volta and Galvani. Its few first translated words have, under a host of elucidators, swelled to volumes. They link into one language the dialects of light, motion and heat. The indurated turpentine of the Pomeranian beach speaks the tongue of the farthest star.
He conceived the idea that metallic substances might have the effect of removing diseases, if applied in a certain manner; a notion probably suggested by the then recent experiments of Galvani, in which muscular contractions were found to be produced by the contact of two metals with the living fibre.
This more than justifies us in classing it with "Newton and the Apple," "Bruce and the Spider," "Tell and the Apple," "Galvani and the Frog," "Volta and the Damp Cloth," "Washington and His Little Hatchet," a string of gems, amongst the most precious of our legendary possessions. Let no rude iconoclast attempt to undermine one of them. Even if they never occurred, it matters little.
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