Abstract
On 30 October 1786 Luigi Galvani gave the first account, at the Academy of Sciences of Bologna, about his experiments on animal electricity, of which he thought to have obtained evidence from the convulsions shown by a dissected frog, as soon as its hind-limbs were connected with the spinal cord by means of a metallic conductor. The publication of these experiments gave rise to Galvani's controversy with Volta, who denied the existence of animal electricity after discovering that there exists a potential difference between any couple of dissimilar conductors. This was a preliminary step that led Volta to the invention of the voltaic pile. Evidence of animal electricity was given about 1840 by Carlo Matteucci, using the astatic galvanometer invented by Leopoldo Nobili. This fundamental property of living organisms is now a well-advanced field of investigation by electrophysiology and bioelectrochemistry.
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