“To play with fire
They say is dangerous; what is it then
To shake hands with the lightning, and to sport
With thunder?”--TYLER.
Galvanism, or electricity of quantity, in contradistinction to
frictional electricity, called electricity of intensity, owes its name
to the experiments on animal irritability made in 1790 by M. Galvani,
a professor of anatomy at Bologna. These experiments were suggested by
the following circumstances.