On January 31, 1793, Volta announced to the Royal Society his discovery
of the development of electricity in metallic bodies. Galvani had given
the name of Animal Electricity to the power which caused spontaneous
convulsions in the limbs of frogs when the divided nerves were
connected by a metallic wire. Volta, however, saw the true cause of the
phenomena described by Galvani. Observing that the effects were far
greater when the connecting medium consisted of two different kinds
of metal, he inferred that the principle of excitation existed in the
metals, and not in the nerves of the animal; and he assumed that the
exciting fluid was ordinary electricity, produced by the contact of the
two metals; the convulsions of the frog consequently arose from the
electricity thus developed passing along its nerves and muscles.
In 1800 Volta invented what is now called the Voltaic Pile, or compound
Galvanic circle.
The term Animal Electricity (says Dr. Whewell) has been superseded
by others, of which _Galvanism_ is the most familiar; but I think
that Volta’s office in this discovery is of a much higher and more
philosophical kind than that of Galvani; and it would on this
account be more fitting to employ the term _Voltaic Electricity_,
which, indeed, is very commonly used, especially by our most
recent and comprehensive writers. The _Voltaic pile_ was a more
important step in the history of electricity than the Leyden jar
had been--_Hist. Ind. Sciences_, vol. iii.
No one who wishes to judge impartially of the scientific history
of these times and of its leaders, will consider Galvani and
Volta as equals, or deny the vast superiority of the latter over
all his opponents or fellow-workers, more especially over those
of the Bologna school. We shall scarcely again find in one man
gifts so rich and so calculated for research as were combined
in Volta. He possessed that “incomprehensible talent,” as Dove
has called it, for separating the essential from the immaterial
in complicated phenomena; that boldness of invention which must
precede experiment, controlled by the most strict and cautious
mode of manipulation; that unremitting attention which allows no
circumstance to pass unnoticed; lastly, with so much acuteness,
so much simplicity, so much grandeur of conception, combined with
such depth of thought, he had a hand which was the hand of a
workman.--_Jameson’s Journal_, No. 106.