Luigi Galvani, Physician, surgeon, physicist: From animal electricity to electro-physiology

Abstract

The two-hundredth anniversary of the death of Luigi Galvani (1732-1798), famed discoverer of animal electricity and professor of anatomy at the University of Bologna, provided an occasion to launch a rigorous and in-depth study of his work and multifarious scientific activity. Thanks to the many initiatives conducted in this direction, enriched by others held on the occasion of the anniversaries of the deaths of Lazzaro Spallanzani (1799) and Alessandro Volta (1799) it is now possible to render a reliable and detailed picture of Galvani's personality and theories.