Luigi Galvani - Galvani Vs. Volta: Animal Electricity or Heat Electricity?

Galvani Vs. Volta: Animal Electricity or Heat Electricity?

Alexandria Volta, a professor of physics in Pavia, was among the first scientists who repeated and checked Galvani’s experiments. At first, he embraced animal electricity. However, he started to doubt that the conductions were caused by a specific electricity intrinsic to animal's legs or other body part. Volta believed that the contractions depended on the metal cable Galvani used to connect nerves and muscles in his experiments.

Volta's investigations led shortly to the invention of an early battery. Galvani did not perceive electricity as separable from biology. Galvani did not see electricity as the essence of life, which he regarded vitalistically. Galvani believed that the animal electricity came from the muscle in its pelvice. Galvani's associate Alessandro Volta, in opposition, reasoned that the animal electricity was a physical phenomenon caused by rubbing frog skin and not a metallic electricity.

Every cell has a cell potential; biological electricity has the same chemical underpinnings as the current between electrochemical cells, and thus can be duplicated outside the body. Volta's intuition was correct. Volta, essentially, objected to Galvani’s conclusions about "animal electric fluid", but the two scientists disagreed respectfully and Volta coined the term "Galvanism" for a direct current of electricity produced by chemical action. Thus, owing to an argument between the two in regard to the source or cause of the electricity, Volta built the first battery in order to specifically disprove his associate's theory. Volta's “pile” became known therefore as a voltaic pile.

After the controversy with Volta, Galvani kept a low profile partly because of his attitude towards the controversy, and partly because his health and spirits had declined, especially after the death of his wife, Lucia, in 1790.

Since Galvani was reluctant to intervene in the controversy with Volta, he trusted his nephew to act as the main defender of the theory of animal electricity.