The Galvani-Volta debate, or the theory of animal electricity versus the theory of contact, divides the scientific community. In favour of Galvani one finds the nephew Giovanni Aldini in Bologna, Lazzaro Spallanzani in Pavia, Eusebio Valli in Pisa, Antonio Vassalli in Torino, Alexander von Humboldt in Berlin, and others. On the side of Volta are Giovanni Corradori in Pisa, Bassano Carminati in Pavia, Richard Fowler in Edinburg, Christoph Pfaff in Stoccarda, Johann Reil and Fredrich Gren in Halle, and others.
The importance of Volta’s pile obscures the theoretical discussions. Volta is considered the winner of the controversy, and animal electricity, which already had stirred hopes of medical applications, is set aside.
After thirty years or more, Stefano Marianini and Leopoldo Nobili reconsider the experiments of Galvani. Carlo Matteucci, born in Forli’, correctly interprets the last experiments of the bolognese scientist, introducing the so called “injury potential”. He discovers the action potential of the nerve although not giving a correct interpretation of it. On the base of Matteucci’s experiments, Du Bois Reymond will start his electrophysiology experiments. The work of Galvani, and his hypothesis of animal electricity (...“in animals there is a particular machine capable of generating a disequilibrium”...) are revaluated. Only in the middle of this century such a machine is identified with the cellular membrane.
Caption: Portraits of Leopoldo Nobili (1), and Carlo Matteucci (2), Giovanni Aldini (3).
