Luigi Galvani - Physicist, or Animal Necromancer?

Most, if not all of you should know who Luigi Galvani is. Possibly the most influential birth in 1737 was his, and as such this is a tribute to the man his friends call "Luigi". Born in 1737, to Mr and Mrs Galvani, he was originally thought to be retarded. It's so comforting to know that this pillar of human achievement didn't speak until the age of four, and is actually the basis for many pre-adolescent models of spastic children. Thus the conclusion, he was a really dumb kid. Oh how he has grown though! How he has grown! From a retarded, speechless child, to the friend a Napoleonic Count.

Poo-Head likes the idea of idiots succeeding. It gives us hope, it lets us dream. For if they can do it, why can't we? Then who better to inspire us than this, congenital defect - Luigi Galvini. The Retardinator. Rumour has it as a child he would bang his head against the wall and often be confused between his mother and father. Having seen engravings of the two, he would've been a genius to tell them apart. However he did not, and so cannot, even in the slightest be called a child prodigy, or even gifted. Not only was he average, he was below average - as well. This was a problem for the Galvini family. They were partially aristocratic, having some amount of royal blood in them and although they had been recently been somewhat demoted from their post as Italy's Socialites, they were  still half respectable. All of Galvani's brothers went into the priesthood, and there are some who think they owned their own Web-Design company. Which is pretty stupid, considering the internet wasn't even around then. Or is that just one of many of the Galvani Secrets? The point is, he was the failure of the family.

That's right, everybody's favourite Galvani had a secret. Sure, he says he laid the founding stones for electrical physicists everywhere, but did he really? I put it to you that The Retardinator was in fact a Necromancer.

nec·ro·man·cy (nkr-mns) n. The practice of supposedly communicating with the spirits of the dead in order to predict the future. Black magic; sorcery. Magic qualities. [Alteration of Middle English nigromancie, from Old French nigremancie, from Medieval Latin nigromantia, alteration (influenced by Latin niger, black), of Late Latin necromantia from Greek nekromanteia : nekros, corpse; see nek-1 in Indo-European Roots + manteia, divination; see -mancy.] necro·mancer n. necro·mantic (-mntk) adj.

I look at his experiments and say "Eep". I am afraid, very afraid. 

Pictured right is an artist's interpretation of Luigi Galvani. It is possible he lived on the flesh of other human beings, and as well as this, was from Tuscany, the Tasmania of Italy. However one cannot deny that he was in fact a great scientist who essentially spent his days in his 'lab' of evil, reviving the dead animals with what he called 'electrophysiolgy'. This is obviously a branch of the black arts, which for my mind includes his evil works in 'electricity' as well.  Some may inquire as to how the hell Luigi Galvani brought these wonderful amphibians back to life. Sure, he says that it was the damn  charges of 'animal electricity' but because no one since the 18th Century has bothered to recreate his experiments nobody really knows. In fact, it is more likely electrical charges were used to treat syphilis than to make the froggies jump again.  In 1786, for example, it is alleged he obtained muscular contractions in a frog by touching its nerves with a pair of scissors during an electrical storm. It is also alleged he the devoured the frog in a pagan mating ritual. You be the judge. He also (apparently) caused a frog muscle to contract by touching it with a nerve of another frog's electrostatic generator, showing that bioelectricity (sort of) exists within living tissue.  In his last years, Galvani refused to swear allegiance to the Cisalpine Republic established by Napoleon and he was fired from the University of Bologna. Some say that this sent him crazy as a mule. Others say he went crazy when he was captured by the Japanese and forced to work on the Burma Railway. They are of course both wrong, he went crazy after being sentenced to an Italian jail for 17 years. His crime? Hiring a brass band to follow around Napoleon playing A Little Spanish Flea every minute, of every day, forever. He effectively caused Napoleon's retreat from Russia in the Patriotic War of 1812. Fortunately, the authorities relented and he was allowed to resume his position without taking the oath.

Preceded by a companion paper on Galvani's life, this article is written on the occasion of the bicentenary of the death of Luigi Galvani, give or take a few years months and/or days. From his studies on the effects of 'electricity' on frogs, and his research into the black arts - the scientist of Bologna derived the hypothesis that animal tissues are endowed with an intrinsic electricity that is involved in fundamental physiological processes such as nerve conduction and muscle contraction. Galvani's work swept away from life science's mysterious fluids and elusive entities like "animal spirits" and led to the foundation of a new science, electrophysiology - That, and he could play the piano with his toes.

Two centuries of research work have demonstrated how insightful was Galvani's conception of animal electricity, but not really. If anything, they have paved the way for young Artisans of the Forbidden Realm.  Nevertheless, the scholar of Bologna is still largely misrepresented in the history of science, because the importance of his researches seems to be limited to the fact that they opened the paths to the studies of the physicist Alessandro Volta, and gateways to the Netherworld which culminated in 1800 with the invention of the electric battery, and the destruction of Atlantis. 

   Volta strongly opposed Galvani's theories on animal electricity and his Satan Worship. The matter of the scientific controversy between Galvani and Volta is examined here in the light of two centuries of electrophysiological studies leading to the modern understanding of electrical excitability in nerve and muscle. By surveying the work of scientists such as Nobili, Teen Queen, Matteucci, Dr Seus, du Bois-Reymond, Satan, von Helmholtz, Hades, Bernstein, Merlin, Hermann, Gandalf, Lucas, Adrian, Hodgkin, Huxley, and Katz, the real matter of the debate raised by Galvani's discoveries is here reconsidered. In addition, a revolutionary phase of the 18th century science that opened the way for the development of modern neurosciences is reevaluated.

But not right now. In fact, never.

+Hing--->Out

Bang the head that does not bang - Cure Cancer Today