LUIGI GALVANI: BIOGRAPHY, CONTRIBUTIONS, WORKS, RECOGNITIONS - BIOGRAPHIES - 2025

Luigi Galvani (1737-1798) was a scientist who focused on the study of human anatomy. Thanks to his experiments with frogs, he managed to discover that the nervous system could react to electrical stimuli, even though the frogs were lifeless.

He called his find animal electricity, although today this theory is known as galvanism. He had a great influence on the work of Alessandro Volta, who copied Galvani's experiments although he reached different conclusions.

Source: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Volta was credited with creating the voltaic cell by working on Galvani's theories, which is why this cell is often referred to as a galvanic cell as well. It was a type of battery that allowed a source of electricity to exist that was capable of acting constantly.

The importance of Luigi Galvani was made clear because he was one of the names that were most used to define a large number of instruments, processes or theories. He had a lot of influence in areas like electricity, physics and also engineering.

Instruments such as the galvanometer or techniques such as galvanizing were named in honor of the Italian doctor and researcher.

As a curiosity, Galvani was close to becoming a priest, but his love of science led him to be one of the most important doctors of his time.

Biography

Personal life

Luigi Galvani was born in Bologna on September 9, 1737. He was born as a result of the union between Domenico Galvani and Barbara Foschi. They were a well-known family in the old Papal State, although they were not characterized by being part of the wealthiest or most important social classes of the time.

Galvani's father was dedicated to the profession of goldsmith, while his mother was the fourth wife that the scientist's father had.

At the age of 25, Galvani started his own family alongside Lucía Galeazzi, who was the only daughter of one of Galvani's physics teachers during his university days, Domenico Galeazzi.

Lucia also devoted herself to the scientific world and helped her husband in many of his works and experiments. He died when he was only 47 years old from asthma, in 1788. The couple never had children.

Ten years later Galvani died. He was 61 years old and in poverty. His death occurred on December 4, 1798, at his brother's house, in the doctor's hometown.

Education

Galvani's first interest was really in religion. The Italian was part of a religious institution during his adolescence, although he never had the support of his parents to become a priest.

A few classes in grammar and letters created an interest in philosophy. Although Galvani's parents did not have much money, they managed to send their son to college. Galvani enrolled but after some first philosophy classes he decided to change his field of study to dedicate himself to medicine.

In this way he became a student at the University of Bologna, which at the time was one of the most important institutions in the area of ​​physics, chemistry and natural history.

He finally graduated in medicine in 1759 and years later became a professor at his alma mater.

Jobs

Galvani began to work as a doctor and surgeon in the hospitals of the city of Bologna, although he also worked privately. Galvani had various roles at the academic level thanks to the importance of his father-in-law within the university community.

Galvani was in charge of the preservation of the anatomical figures. He also became a professor of anatomy at the Institute of Sciences.

He became president of the College of Medicine in Bologna and was in charge of giving licenses so that the doctors of the time could work. He was also responsible for controlling the production and marketing of medicines. It is at this stage that his interest in the subject of muscular movement in human beings begins.

At the Institute of Sciences, he stopped teaching anatomy classes to teach obstetrics. Her classes were characterized by being practical and were not only focused on medical students, she also focused on the women who helped with childbirth during this time.

Punishment

Just over a year before his death, in 1797, the Cisalpine Republic was founded. All public employees who were in the territory of this Republic had to pledge allegiance to this State.

Galvani disagreed with this action because it contradicted his beliefs. The punishment by the authorities was to remove the scientist from all his academic positions at the universities. This decision meant that the doctor could no longer have a salary and a home, nor would he have a pension at the end of his career.

That's when Galvani moved to the house that belonged to his parents, where his half-brother Francesco continued to live. The authorities of the Republic came to rectify their decision and in January 1799 the doctor would return to his positions, but Galvani died before the decision became effective.

Contributions

Although Galvani worked in different areas such as obstetrics, anatomy and surgery, his most important experiments had to do with the link he discovered between electricity and the network of nerves and muscles present in the body of a frog.

The Italian managed, thanks to his experiments, to refute some of the ideas that Descartes had raised almost 200 years earlier. The French philosopher came to refer to the nerves as a species of tubes that allowed the circulation of liquids.

Thanks to Galvani, it was possible to discover and understand the real functioning of the nervous system. It could be compared to an electrical appliance, which had a very efficient performance.

Galvani's studies and theories had some limitations typical of the time and that is that the Italian did not have sufficiently advanced tools to measure and establish the level of tension that passed through the nervous system.

Galvani's ideas led to the creation of a new science in the area of ​​physiology that was called neurophysiology.

The Italian was also of great influence so that Alessandro Volta could invent the voltaic pile, which was the first step so that electrical energy was later created.

In addition to the influence that he generated in Volta, Galvani opened the doors for it to be possible to carry out new and different tests on muscle physiology and nerves.

Works and publications

Galvani is credited with a wealth of ideas and research throughout his career. His most important work had to do with the contraction that a frog experienced at the muscular level when the doctor touched the nerves while removing the skin.

This occurred while working with his wife and using a scalpel that had previously been used in static experiments.

Role of electricity in nerve impulses

Galvani corroborated his findings with further experiments. It was characterized by being exhaustive in its studies, so it was only until 1791 that the Italian decided to make his discovery public. Comment on the effect of electricity on muscle movement was the work where he presented his ideas.

There he spoke for the first time about what he called 'animal electricity', and referred to the response of muscles or nerves to being pierced by a metal object.

For Galvani, a new type of electricity appeared, different from the natural one that existed thanks to lightning or the fish known as electric eel. In addition, there was also the artificial electricity that appeared thanks to the friction of things; that is to say, of the statics.

In general terms, Galvani went so far as to affirm that there was an electrical liquid in the nervous system and the brain played a prominent role in secreting this content.

Controversy with Volta

Galvani's theories were so striking that they piqued the interest of other scientists. Volta was one of the most fascinated by the doctor's findings and decided to duplicate the investigations carried out and almost immediately managed to point out some errors in Galvani's approaches.

For example, Volta refuted animal electricity, as he found that muscles were not relevant during the electricity production process as Galvani believed. The claim created a dispute between proponents of animal electricity and those who supported the ideas of metallic electricity.

From these ideas, Volta created the voltaic pile, an invention that ended up supporting the notes made by the Italian chemist.

In the end, both had a fundamental role in understanding electrical expressions. Although the two scientists staged a dispute to defend their claims and Volta even went so far as to prove his hypotheses with experiments on himself.

The difference between the two is that Volta at that time had the necessary apparatus to calculate electric current, thanks to the fact that his area was physics.

End of conflict

As time passed, Galvani had no choice but to accept that Volta was correct in refuting his thoughts. It was a defeat that affected the last years of his life.

Nowadays, it is possible to know that both were actually right with part of their approaches. Galvani was right when he spoke of electrical currents in the human body and he was the first to do so, he only failed to interpret the results.

At the time, Galvani began to focus solely on teaching at the university. Specifically, he focused on practical teaching in medical areas such as obstetrics and surgery.

In the dispute between the two scientists also appeared a publication, of unknown author, that supported Galvani's ideas. All these facts were of great importance for the creation of electrophysiology as a branch of study, where the electrical characteristics of the different cells and tissues in the body are analyzed.

Plays

There were not many publications made by Galvani during his professional career. In 1761 he published his doctoral thesis. Then he wrote in Bologna, in 1791, Commentaries on the muscular force and the movement of electricity. A year later this work was expanded with some contributions and annotations by the Italian physicist Giovanni Aldini.

Several of his works appeared after his death in 1798. For example, the Bologna Academy of Sciences was commissioned to compile several Galvani manuscripts for later publication in the mid-19th century, as well as excerpts from his anatomy classes.

During the 1930s, a work on Galvani's unpublished experiments was also published thanks to the work of the publisher Licinio Cappelli.

Awards and honours

Despite all the controversies and mistakes that some of his experiments could have, Galvani has been considered one of the most important figures in the scientific area. Their contributions were recognized with different actions.

There is a crater on the moon that was named in his honor. The Frankenstein play is said to be a sample of Galvani's ideas as it deals with resuscitation, which is made possible by the use of electricity.

In addition, Galvani was one of the members of the Venerable Third Order, which demonstrated his penchant for religious matters. Today they are known as Franciscan Tertiaries. The members of this order had not taken votes.

During 1766, the Senate appointed him to serve as curator and body preparer at the anatomy museum.

The most important recognitions can be observed in the number of terms that were awarded to processes, theories or devices in honor of Galvani. Engineers and physicists used his name a lot, just like in the field of electricity.

At present some of the words that are kept to define devices are the galvanocautery, the galvanoscope, the galvanometer (name that was the idea of ​​André-Marie Ampere.

Furthermore, in different areas of study reference is made to Italian, such as galvanism, galvanosurgery or galvanotherapy. Galvanic is perhaps one of the most used terms. It refers to electricity and its processes in the human body.

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