During the 18th century the perception of electricity was significantly different from today. In particular, the idea of ‘bioelectricity’ - the electrical phenomena that control our body - was trying to surface among a set of multifaceted studies and innovative processes involving electricity. The concept of animal electricity finally emerged at the very end of the 18th century thanks to the work of the Italian physician, physicist and anatomist at the University of Bologna, Luigi Galvani, whose findings were disputed by the physicist Alessandro Volta, from Como. At the beginning of the 19th century, Giovanni Aldini, the nephew of Galvani, attempted to demonstrate the existence of animal electricity by using voltaic batteries to stimulate the corpse of animals and humans, often in front of laypersons. One of these public events occurred in London on January 17, 1803, when Aldini applied electrical stimulation (at that time called Galvanic stimulation) on the corpse of a hanged criminal, ‘almost to give an appearance of reanimation’. The results of such gruesome exhibitions were reported in detail by local newspapers, ingraining the idea that electricity might be the long-sought vital force. The English writer Mary Shelley is likely to have been influenced by such events, which suggest the possibility of reanimating dead bodies by the application of electricity. She ingeniously put this concept into action in her highly influential gothic novel "Frankenstein, or the modern Prometheus."
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Bevilacqua, Fabio;
Fregonese, Lucio;
(2000)
Nuova Voltiana: Studies on Volta and his times. Volume 1
(/isis/citation/CBB000110593/)
Article
(2001)
L'électricité dans ses premières grandeurs, Presentation; Electricity in its first glories (1760-1820)
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Marco Piccolino;
(2015)
Alessandro Volta e la sua pila: fisica, fisiologia e medicina nel secolo dei lumi
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Book
Bevilacqua, Fabio;
Fregonese, Lucio;
(2000)
Nuova Voltiana: Studies on Volta and His Times
(/isis/citation/CBB000600691/)
Book
Bernardi, Walter;
(1992)
I fluidi della vita: Alle origini della controversia sull'elettricità animale
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Article
Bresadola, Marco;
(2008)
Animal Electricity at the End of the Eighteenth Century: The Many Facets of a Great Scientific Controversy
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Chapter
Focaccia, Miriam;
Simili, Raffaella;
(2007)
Luigi Galvani, Physician, Surgeon, Physicist: From Animal Electricity to Electro-Physiology
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Bresadola, Marco;
(2011)
Luigi Galvani: Devozione, scienza e rivoluzione
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Bevilacqua, Fabio;
Fregonese, Lucio;
(2000)
Nuova Voltiana: Studies on Volta and His Times. Volume 3
(/isis/citation/CBB000100001/)
Book
Edwige Comoy Fusaro;
(2007)
La nevrosi tra medicina e letteratura
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Giudice, Franco;
Bonera, Gianni;
(2003)
Lorenzo Mascheroni e Alessandro Volta: un dialogo tra scienza e poesia
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Article
Finger, Stanley;
Piccolino, Marco;
Stahnisch, Frank W.;
(2013)
Alexander von Humboldt: Galvanism, Animal Electricity, and Self-Experimentation Part 2: The Electric Eel, Animal Electricity, and Later Years
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Book
Pancaldi, Giuliano;
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Volta: Science and Culture in the Age of Enlightenment
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Pera, Marcello;
(1992)
The ambiguous frog: The Galvani-Volta controversy on animal electricity. Translated by Jonathan Mandelbaum
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Claudio Forner;
Valentina Gallo;
Sabine Schwarze;
Corrado Viola;
(2017)
Le carte false. Epistolarità fittizia nel Settecento italiano
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Gianni Paganini;
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Women, Philosophy and Science: Italy and Early Modern Europe
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Article
Brenni, Paolo;
(2001)
Le cabinet de physique d'Alessandro Volta à Pavie
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Chapter
Bellodi, Giuliano;
Brenni, Paolo;
(2001)
The “Arms of the Physicists”: Volta and Scientific Instruments
(/isis/citation/CBB000102406/)
Book
Paolo Casini;
(2021)
Scienza e illuminismo nel Settecento italiano: L'eredità di Galileo da Frisi a Volta
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Chapter
Antonio Borrelli;
(2017)
The "Viaggio celeste" by Giuseppe Saverio Poli
(/isis/citation/CBB180056353/)
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