Luigi Galvani (1737 - 1798)

During the 1780's, biologist Luigi Galvani performed experiments at the University of Bologna involving frogs. While cutting a frog’s leg, Galvani's steel scalpel touched a brass hook that was holding the leg in

place. The leg twitched. Further experiments confirmed this effect, and Galvani was convinced that he was seeing the effects of what he called animal electricity, the life force within the muscles of the frog. At the University of Pavia, Galvani's colleague Alessandro Volta was able to reproduce the results, but was skeptical of Galvani's explanation.

By experiment Volta found that it was the two dissimilar metals, not the frog’s leg that produced the electicity. The frog’s leg was just an indicator of presence of the electricity.