A project funded by the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS)
At the beginning of the 19th century the study of nerve function and the electrical properties of living tissues was mainly carried out within a new area of research called “Galvanism”. This new area derived from the research path opened by Luigi Galvani’s work on animal electricity in the 1790s and from the invention of the battery by Alessandro Volta in 1800. It was characterized by strong interdisciplinarity and a practice founded on new instruments and experimental methods.
The battery became a powerful analogy to conceive the functioning of the nervous system and the structure of the brain, as well as a method which allowed the investigation of bodily solids and fluids from chemical, physical and physiological perspectives. The introduction of new instruments such as the galvanometer was applied to the study of biological electricity in animals like frogs and electric fish, which had been at the center of electrophysiological research since Galvani’s times.
This massive experimental investigation in the realm of Galvanism had an important outcome at the middle of the 19th century in the work of Emil du Bois-Reymond which led to the foundation of modern neurosciences.
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