GALVANI, LEWIS, a physician and physiologist, whose name has obtained a very unusual degree of celebrity, in consequence of his having discovered the rudiments of a new branch of science, which was called after him, Galvan ism. The history of this discovery will be detailed in the following article ; at present we shall confine ourselves en tirely to the biographical events of his life. He was born at Bologna in 1737, and was a member of a respectable fa mily in that city, several of whom had distinguished them selves in the exercise of the professions of law and divinity. From his early youth he appears to have been of a serious and devout turn of mind, and it is said that he was so much attached to the discipline of the Romish church, as to have resolved to enter into one of the monastic orders. He was, however, dissuaded from this resolution, and he engaged in the study of medicine, and the collateral branches of natu ral philosophy. In the course of his education, he became a domestic pupil of Professor Galeazzi, and he so endeared himself to the family by his amiable disposition, that he formed a matrimonial connection with the professor's daugh ter. ibis lady seems, from all accounts, to have been dis tingteed both for her virtues and her talents ; Galvani bore the tenderest regard fur her; and when in the year 1790 she died, after a long series of ill health, it threw him into a state of melancholy, from which he scarcely after wards recovered. It appears that the discovery, which gave so much celebrity to his name, was, in some measure, due to the sagacity of Madam Galvani, for the original phenomena were noticed by her in the absence of the pro fessor, and were reported to him as something that deserv ed his particular attention.
GALvANtsm is a branch of natural philosophy, which has originated within the last twenty-five years, and derives its name from Galvani, professor of anatomy at Bologna. He had the good fortune to make some observations on the electricity of the muscles of frogs, that appeared to him to depend upon a new power in the animal body ; and although it is now generally admitted, that he drew an erroneous inference from his observations, yet they led to a train of experiments, which have associated his name with some of the most brilliant discoveries of modern science. To the supposed new power he gave the name of animal electricity, conceiving it to depend upon something inherent in the animal body itself; but we now regard these effects as pro duced by minute quantities of the electric fluid set at li berty by a certain agency of substances upon each other.
Galvanism may be defined, a series of electrical pheno mena, in which the electricity is developed without the aid of friction, and where we perceive a chemical action to take place between some of the bodies employed.
In treating upon this subject, we shall arrange our ma terials into two divisions. We shall begin by an historical detail of the discoveries that have been successively made, from the time of Galvani's first observation to the present period ; and, in the second place, we shall give an account of the theories and hypotheses that have been formed to explain the phenomena of galvanism.
THE original discovery, to which we have already al luded, took place from a singular accident. The wife of the philosopher, being in a declining state of health, em ployed as a restorative, according to the custom of the country, a soup made of frogs. A number of these animals, ready skinned for the purpose of cookery, chanced to lie in Galvani's laboratory, on a table near the electrical ma chine. While the machine was in action, an attendant hap pened to touch, with the point of a scalpel, the crural nerve of one of the frogs, that was not far from the prime con ductor, when it was observed that the muscles of the limb were instantly thrown into strong convulsions. This ex periment was performed in the absence of the Professor, but it was noticed by his lady, who was much struck with the appearance, and communicated it to her husband. He repeated the experiment, varied it in different ways, and perceived that the convulsions only took place when a spark was drawn from the prime conductor, while the nerve was, at the same time, touched with a substance which was a conductor of electricity. At the time that this acci dental discovery was made, Galvani was engaged in a set of experiments, the object of which was to prove, that mus cular motion depends upon electricity ; and it appeared, in a very remarkable manner, to confirm his hypothesis ; so that he was induced to prosecute the inquiry with redoubled diligence. See .Elope de Galvani, par Alibert.