[14] With Galvani's attention to medical electricity, it is not surprising that for several years, beginning with 1873, an Italian medical journal called Il Galvani, with the sub-title Giornale di Elettro-Idro-ed Aero Terapia, was published at Milan. Its directors were the brothers Themistocles and Ulysses Santopadre. Those who think that an exaggeration of claims for electrical influence on various diseases is of comparatively recent date, will do well to consult that journal. The prophylaxis of yellow-fever is suggested by means of static electricity. The cause of yellow-fever is declared to be a disturbance of the electro-magnetic conditions of the body. Everything, from skin diseases to uterine inertia, chloroform asphyxia, aphasia, and the various forms of paralysis, and Basedow's disease, are described as cured by electrical treatment. So does science become the nursing mother of quackery.
[15] Edinburgh, 1793.
[16] In 1795, one of the theses presented for the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh was on the subject of Galvanism, or at least on Galvani's work, by Francis Barker, who signs himself Hibernicus, an evidence of the fact that Irishmen often went to Edinburgh for their scientific training. This thesis serves to show that Galvani's work was already attracting the attention even of the most distant of Western Universities.
[17] It is interesting to note that the two successful inventions for lessening the necessity for deterrent dissecting work are due to women—Professor Manzolini and her wax models, and Alessandra Giliani, the assistant of Mondino, Father of Dissection, (d. 1320), who knew how "to fill the veins with various colored fluids which would harden, and paint these same vessels and color them so naturally that they brought Mondino great fame and credit." (Old Chronicler.)
[18] Opere Edite ed Inedite del Professore Luigi Galvani Raccolte e Pubblicate Per Cura Dell'Accademia Delle Scienze Dell'Instituto Di Bologna, Bologna Tipografia Di Emilio Dall'Olmo. MDCCCXLI.
[CHAPTER V.]
Volta the Founder of Electrical Science.
Up to the end of the eighteenth century, discoverers in electrical science had usually been students of science in other departments, whose attention to electricity had been attracted in passing as it were. Occasionally, indeed, they had been only interested amateurs, inquisitive as to the curious phenomena of magnetism. It is surprising how many of these pioneers in electricity were clergymen, though that fact is seldom realized. It can be seen very readily in my chapter on Clergymen Pioneers in Electricity, in Catholic Churchmen in Science (Second Series, Dolphin Press, Phila., 1909). With Volta's career, however, was initiated the story of the electrical scientists who devoted themselves almost exclusively to this department of physics, though more or less necessarily paying some attention to related subjects. Volta's discovery of a practical instrument for measuring electricity, as well as of comparatively simple apparatus producing a continuous current, changed the whole face of the science of electricity. After these inventions, regular work could be readily done in the investigation of problems in the science of electricity without discouragement or inadequate instruments, discontinuous electrical phenomena, disturbances of experiments by the weather, and other conditions which had been hitherto so unfavorable to electrical experimentation. Volta's invention of the pile, or battery, so deservedly called after him, caused electrical science to take on an entirely new aspect, and the modern development of electricity was assured. It has been well said that no other invention, not even the steam-engine, meant so much for the transformation of modern life as this new apparatus for the production of a continuous electric current.
