An Interactive Annotated World Bibliography of Printed and Digital Works in the History of Medicine and the Life Sciences from Circa 2000 BCE to 2022 by Fielding H. Garrison (1870-1935), Leslie T. Morton (1907-2004), and Jeremy M. Norman (1945- ) Traditionally Known as “Garrison-Morton”

15961 entries, 13944 authors and 1935 subjects. Updated: March 22, 2024

GALVANI, Luigi

2 entries
  • 593

De viribus electricitatis in motu musculari commentarius.

Bonon. Sci. Art. Inst. Acad. Comment., Bologna, 7, 363-418, 1791.

In the course of his experiments on irritable responses caused by static electricity applied to frog muscles, Galvani produced electric current from the contact of two different metals in a moist environment. Galvani mistakenly believed this phenomenon (which his nephew Giovanni Aldini called “galvanism”) to be animal electricity. See No. 594.1 Facsimile of Volta’s copy, with English translation, and bibliography of editions and translations by J.F. Fulton and M.E. Stanton, Norwalk, Conn., Bumdy Library, 1953.



Subjects: PHYSIOLOGY › Electrophysiology
  • 594.1

Dell’uso e dell’attività dell arco conduttore nelle contrazioni dei muscoli.

Bologna: S. Tommaso dAquino, 1794.

The first account of Galvani’s electrical experiments without the presence of metals, in which he demonstrated the presence of electrical energy in living tissue by showing that convulsions in frog nerve-muscle preparations could be produced simply by touching nerve to muscle. This observation of the injury current of nerve or demarcation current was the first proof of animal electricity. The key experiment appears in a 23-page “Supplemento” following p. 168. Some authorities consider this a joint publication of Galvani and Aldini. See No. 593.



Subjects: PHYSIOLOGY › Electrophysiology