In 1787 Aloysio Luigi Galvani (1737-1798), at that time Professor of Anatomy at the University of Bologna, demonstrated that the muscles of the hind limbs of a frog manifested "electromotive phenomena." A partly dissected frog's leg with a metal scalpel accidentally left in contact with an exposed nerve showed muscle contractions whenever a nearby electrostatic apparatus was rotated. Ensuing experiments led him to describe a method for stimulating tissues electrically by simply touching a muscle or nerve with two rods of clissimilar metals bound together, believing that it was due to electricity generated within the tissues. Allesandro Volta (1745-1827), Professor of Physics at the University of Pavia, challenged Galvani's interpretation by denying the existence of animal electricity, believing that the stimulation was due to electricity generated at the points of contact of the two metals. Thus arose a famous scientific controversy. To meet Volta's objection Galvani develo ped an experiment in which muscle contraction was induced using living tissue instead of metal rods. He showed that if a nerve was made to touch another tissue a two points, one injured and the other uninjured, the muscle supplied by the nerve would contract. This was the first unequivocal demonstration of the existence of electricity in living tissue and also the first description of the current of injury. Since then many researchers were "galvanized" by all kinds of electrical phenomena in various animal models, some of these related to the heart.

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Netherlands Heart Foundation
M.L. Simoons (Maarten)
Erasmus University Rotterdam
hdl.handle.net/1765/21618
Erasmus MC: University Medical Center Rotterdam

Veldkamp, R. (1995, April 26). Continuous Digital 12-Lead ST -Segment Monitoring in Acute Myocardial Infarction. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/1765/21618