Volta and Galvani
Alessandro Volta (1745-1827) was an Italian physicist widely known for the invention of the battery, but more importantly his conflicts with Luigi Galvani on their differing views about animal and chemical electricity, which have led to great advances in certain areas science as a whole despite areas of Galvani’s views as being incorrect.
Luigi Galvani himself began using electrical means to experiment with muscular stimulation and was able to cause muscular contraction in a frog by touching its nerves with electrostatically charged metal. He was then later able to cause muscular contraction by touching the frog’s spinal cord that was connected to an iron rail by a brass hook, where the legs twitched, without a source of electrostatic charge; from this, he developed a term known as “animal electricity” concluding that animal tissue contained an innate vital force and “electric fluid”. To further prove his point, Galvani performed another experiment; he established that bioelectric forces exist within living tissue by touching the muscle of one with the nerve of another and causing muscular contraction. His theories were widely accepted but disputed by Alessandro Volta.
Alessandro Volta was a professor of physics and proved the inaccuracy of Galvani’s theories by showing that electricity wasn’t produced as a result of animal tissue but in fact it was only present due to the electricity being conducted by the two metals due to the moisture in the muscle tissue. Hence he deduced that electricity was made up of a chemical reaction because of the conduction of electricity due to the two metals touching.
The differing views of both Galvani and Volta both independently contributed to modern day science and the discovery and invention of may objects. Galvani’s theory of electricity being a fluid may have been wrong in terms of the progress in electricity, but his discovery was important in biomedical science, by determining that the movement of muscles in an animal was
Luigi Galvani himself began using electrical means to experiment with muscular stimulation and was able to cause muscular contraction in a frog by touching its nerves with electrostatically charged metal. He was then later able to cause muscular contraction by touching the frog’s spinal cord that was connected to an iron rail by a brass hook, where the legs twitched, without a source of electrostatic charge; from this, he developed a term known as “animal electricity” concluding that animal tissue contained an innate vital force and “electric fluid”. To further prove his point, Galvani performed another experiment; he established that bioelectric forces exist within living tissue by touching the muscle of one with the nerve of another and causing muscular contraction. His theories were widely accepted but disputed by Alessandro Volta.
Alessandro Volta was a professor of physics and proved the inaccuracy of Galvani’s theories by showing that electricity wasn’t produced as a result of animal tissue but in fact it was only present due to the electricity being conducted by the two metals due to the moisture in the muscle tissue. Hence he deduced that electricity was made up of a chemical reaction because of the conduction of electricity due to the two metals touching.
The differing views of both Galvani and Volta both independently contributed to modern day science and the discovery and invention of may objects. Galvani’s theory of electricity being a fluid may have been wrong in terms of the progress in electricity, but his discovery was important in biomedical science, by determining that the movement of muscles in an animal was