The saliva of the tongue oxidizes a portion of the zinc, which excites electricity, for no chemical action ever takes place without producing electricity. Upon bringing the ends of the two metals together, a slight current passes from one to the other.
By whom was the production of galvanic electricity first noticed?
By Galvani, professor of anatomy at Bologna, Italy, in 1790.
Having occasion to dissect several frogs, he hung up their hind legs on some copper hooks, until he might find it necessary to use them for illustration. In this manner he happened to suspend a number of the copper hooks on an iron balcony, when, to his great astonishment, the limbs were thrown into violent convulsions.
On investigating the phenomena what did Galvani discover?
He found that whenever the nerves of a frog’s leg were touched by one metal and the muscles by another, convulsions took place on bringing the two different metals in contact.
What is the simplest way of exciting a current of galvanic electricity?
By arranging a series of metal plates in a pile, placing them in pairs, with a wet cloth between them, it being necessary that one of each pair should be more easily oxidized than the other. The simple contact of these plates will produce a feeble and continued galvanic current.
What is such an arrangement of plates for producing electrical currents called?
A galvanic or voltaic battery.