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An Account of the Late Improvements in Galvanism: With a Series of Curious and Interesting Experiments Performed Before the Commissioners of the French National Institute, and Repeated Lately in the Anatomical Theatres of LondonAldini, Giovanni

Science

An Account of the Late Improvements in Galvanism: With a Series of Curious and Interesting Experiments Performed Before the Commissioners of the French National Institute, and Repeated Lately in the Anatomical Theatres of London

Name: An Account of the Late Improvements in Galvanism: With a Series of Curious and Interesting Experiments Performed Before the Commissioners of the French National Institute, and Repeated Lately in the Anatomical Theatres of London
Author: Aldini, Giovanni

Aldini, Giovanni

Electricity -- Early works to 1850

[6] As convulsions are excited in two frogs, when one end of
     an arc is made to touch the uncovered crural nerves of the
     one, while the other end of the arc is applied to the crural
     nerves of the other, covered by an armature; I have observed
     that the sensation of two tastes, one acid and the other
     alkaline, can be excited at the same time in the tongues of
     two persons, one of which is armed with tin foil, and the
     other with silver, if a communication be formed between the
     two armatures. It is necessary, however, that a
     communication also should exist between the two persons. If
     the floor on which they stand be wet, and their shoes moist,
     this will be sufficient. _Sig. Dottore Giovachino Carradori
     Lettera quinta sull Ellettricità Animale, diretta al
     Chiarissimo Sig. Cav. Felice Fontana._




SECOND DISSERTATION

ON

ANIMAL ELECTRICITY:

READ IN THE

INSTITUTE OF BOLOGNA,

IN THE YEAR 1794,

By J. ALDINI.


I. The philosophers of the present period are so sanguine in their
expectations, that when a new theory is proposed, unless it be
presented to them perfect and fully proved, they either attack it in
part, or entirely reject it. Such has been the case with animal
electricity, discovered by Galvani. It is urged against it by its
opponents, that it is subject to variations; and because they do not
find it obedient to all those laws established by the laborious
researches of a Franklin, a Beccaria and an Æpinus, they assert either
that it has no foundation, or that it is contrary to nature. It has
therefore been conceived that an accurate comparison of animal and
common electricity, in order to ascertain whether there be any
difference between them, might be the best means of obviating such
objections. For this purpose I made various experiments in animal
electricity under the air pump, employing proper conductors, and I
compared its phænomena with those exhibited by the Leyden flask. In a
word, while I endeavoured to pursue my researches agreeably to the
general theory of common electricity, my principal object was to prove
the constancy of animal electricity, by discovering, if possible, an
agreement in the physical laws of both.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

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