GALVANI, ALOISIO, or LUIGI, the celebrated discoverer of galvanism, or, as he himself called it, "animal electricity," was born at Bologna in Italy in 1737. In his youth he gave evidence of a strongly devotional cast of thought, and he was accordingly educated with a view to taking orders. He changed his plans, however, and studied medicine at the university of his native town. Shortly after graduation, he obtained a public appointment as a medical lecturer, and increased his fame by publishing his Observations on the Organs of Hearing in Birds; Observations on
Galvanism the Urinary Organs, and by various contributions to the transactions of the university. An event, however, apparently accidental in its origin, occurred, which directed into a new channel the study of electrical science, and identified the name of Galvani with one of the most important branches of that great department of physics. His wife was preparing frogs for soup, and having skinned the animals, had placed them near the conductor of a newly charged electrical machine. Happening to touch them with a scalpel which had been in contact with the machine, she saw to her surprise the muscles of the frogs convulsed with violent spasmodic action. Galvani repeated the experiment in a variety of forms, and came to the conclusion that there existed what he called an "animal electricity" both in nerves and muscles. To this erroneous idea he clung through life, even after it had been disproved by his countryman Volta and other experimenters. He took great pains to develop his theory in regard to the phenomena in question as fully as possible, by publishing in 1791 his Commentarius de viribus electricitatis in motu musculari. The purport of this work, and its influence on electrical science, are fully discussed under ELECTRICITY.
In 1797 Galvani made a tour of the shores of the Mediterranean, with a view to verifying his theory by experiments on the electric eel. Soon after returning home he lost his wife; and his affliction was enhanced by his being expelled from his chair for refusing to take the oaths of allegiance when Bologna was incorporated with the Cisalpine Republic. His health and spirits gave way under these calamities, and though he was ultimately reinstated in his professorship, his death, in 1798, prevented him from profiting by his good fortune.