Makers of Electricity

by Brother Potamian; James J. Walsh

A very interesting phase of the Italian University life of that time is revealed in two important incidents of Galvani's university career. One of his professors—one, by the way, for whom he seems to have had a great deal of respect, and to whose lectures he devoted much attention, was Laura Caterina Maria Bassi, the distinguished woman Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bologna, about the middle of the eighteenth century. It is doubtless to her teaching that Galvani owes some of his thorough-going conservatism in philosophic speculation, a conservatism that was of great service to him later on in life, in the midst of the ultra-radical principles which became fashionable just before and during the French Revolution. Madame Bassi seems to have had her influence on him for good not only during his student career, but also later in life, for she was the wife of a prominent physician in Bologna, and Galvani was often in social contact with her during her years of connection with the University.

As might, perhaps, be expected, seeing that his own happy domestic life showed him that an educated woman might be the center of intellectual influence, Galvani seems to have had no spirit of opposition to even the highest education for women. This is very well illustrated by the first formal lecture in his course on anatomy at the University, which had for its subject the models for the teaching of anatomy that had been made by Madame Manzolini.[17] In the early part of the eighteenth century, Madame Manzolini had been the Professor of Anatomy at the University of Bologna, and in order to make the teaching of this difficult subject easier and more definite, she modeled with great care and delicate attention to every detail, so that they imitated actual dissections of the human body very closely, a set of wax figures, which replaced the human body for demonstration purposes, at least at the beginning of the anatomical course.

Galvani, in taking up the work of lecturer in anatomy, appreciated how much such a set of models would serve to make the introduction to anatomical study easy, yet at the same time without diminishing its exactness, and accordingly introduced his students to Madame Manzolini's set of models in his very first lecture. At the time, not a few of the teachers of anatomy at the Italian universities were inclined to consider the use of these models as rather an effeminate proceeding. Galvani's lack of prejudice in the matter shows the readiness of the man to accept the best, wherever he found it, without regard to persons or feelings.

Galvani's personal character was very pleasant, yet rather grave and serious. His panegyrist, Professor Giuseppe Venturoli, in the eulogium of Galvani, delivered in the Public Academy of the Institute of Bologna (1802) within five years after Galvani's death, says that Galvani was far from that coldness or lack of interest which sometimes characterizes scientists in their social relations, and which, as he naïvely says, is sometimes praised and sometimes blamed by those who write about them. Another side of Galvani's character is more interesting. He was ready to do all in his power for the poor. He conducted his obstetrical clinic particularly with a liberal benevolence and charity that deserve to be mentioned. When it is considered how much time his teaching and his charity took from him, it is rather surprising to find that he had enough left to enable him to devote himself with so much success to the difficult tasks he set himself in research and to the time-taking labors of controversy, which occupied many years after the announcement of his discoveries.

The most striking proof of the thorough conscientiousness with which he faced the duties of life is to be found in his conduct after the establishment of the so-called Cis-Alpine Republic in Italy. This was a government established merely by force of arms, maintained through French influence, without the consent of the people, and a plain usurpation of the rights of the previous government. Galvani considered himself bound in duty to the authority under which he had lived all his previous life and to which he had sworn fealty. When the University of Bologna was reorganized under the new government, the first requirement of all those who were made professors was that they should take the oath of allegiance to the new government. This he refused to do. His motives can be readily understood, and though practically all the other professors of the University had taken the oath, he did not consider that this freed him from his conscientious obligations in the matter.

Accordingly he was dropped from the roll of professors and deprived of the never very large salary which he had obtained from this chair. On this sum he had practically depended for his existence, and he began to suffer from want. While he had been a successful practitioner of medicine, especially of surgery, he had always been very liberal, and had spent large sums of money in demonstrations for his lectures and personal experimentation and in materials for the museums of the University. He began to suffer from actual want, and friends had to come to his assistance. He refused, however, to give up his scruples in the matter and accept the professorship which was still open to him. Finally, at the end of two years, influence was brought to bear on the new government, and Galvani was allowed to accept his chair in the University without taking the oath of allegiance. This tribute came too late, however, and within a short time after his restoration to his professorship he died.

Galvani's conduct in this affair is the key-note to his character and conduct through life. For him duty was the paramount word, and success meant the accomplishment of duty. For getting on in the world and material rewards he had no use unless they came as the consequence of duty fulfilled. His action in the matter of the University professorship has of course been much discussed by his biographers.

His eulogist, Professor Venturoli, whom we have already quoted, and whose eulogium is to be found in the complete edition of Galvani's works issued at Bologna in 1841,[18] has much to say with regard to Galvani's religious sentiments.

He says: "The great founder in electricity was deeply religious, and his piety clothed a heart that was not less affectionate and sensitive to affection than it was intrepid and courageous. When called upon to take the civic oath in a formula involved in ambiguous words, he did not believe that he ought, on so serious an occasion, to permit himself anything but the clear and precise expression of his sentiments, full as they were of honesty and rectitude. Refusing to take advantage of the suggestion that he should modify the oath by some declaration apart from the prescribed formula, though it might still be generally understood that he had taken the oath, he refused constantly to commit himself to any such subterfuge. It is not our duty here to ask whether his conclusion was correct or not. He followed the voice of his conscience, which ever must be the standard of duty, and it certainly would have been a fault to have deviated from it. It is sad to think that this great man, deprived of his position, saw himself, for an instant at least, exposed to the danger of ending his career, deprived of the recompense which he so richly deserved and to which his past services to the State and the University had given him so just a title. This is all the more sad when we realize that the vicissitudes of his delicate health, much more than his age, now rendered such recompense doubly necessary. It is a gracious thing to recall, however, the noble firmness with which he maintained himself against so serious a blow. His courage is all the more admirable as one can see how absolutely without affectation it is. He was not ostentatious in his goodness, and did not permit himself to be cast down by the unfortunate conditions, but constantly preserved in the midst of adverse fortune that modest, imperturbable and dignified conduct which had always characterized him in the midst of his prosperity and his glory."

That his action in this matter was very properly appreciated by his contemporaries, and that the moral influence of his example was not lost, can be realized from the expressions used by Alibert, the Secretary-General of the Medical Society of Emulation, in the historical address on Galvani which he delivered before that society in Paris in 1801: