....“The course of the work has progressed in the following way. I dissected a frog and prepared it (in the usual way), and having in mind other things, I placed the frog on the same table where was an electrical machine, but the animal was completely separated from it and at a considerable distance from the machine conductor. When one of my assistants, by chance, lightly applied the point of a scalpel to the inner crural nerves of the frog, suddenly all the muscles of the limbs were seen to contract that they appeared to have fallen into violent tonic convulsions. Another assistant who was present when we were performing these electrical experiments thought he observed that the phenomenon occurred when a spark was discharged from the conductor of the electrical machine. Marveling at this, he immediately brought the unusual phenomenon to my attention when I was completely engrossed, contemplating other things. Hereupon I became extremely enthusiastic and eager to repeat the experiment so as to clarify the obscure phenomenon and make it known”....
(From De viribus ...; it is also the first detection of electromagnetic waves).
1) Galvani and his collaborators during an experiment at home.
