The Lady and Her Monsters (6 page)

In 1540 officials from the University of Bologna invited Vesalius to give several lectures and anatomical presentations. Not surprisingly, thousands of students attended, though the most reliable note-taker appears to have been Baldasar Heseler.

“The anatomy of our subject was arranged in the place where they used to elect the Rector Medicorum,” Heseler's notes read. “A table, on which the subject was laid, was conveniently and well installed with four steps of benches in a circle, so that nearly 200 persons could see the anatomy. However, nobody was allowed to enter before the anatomists, and altogether, those who had paid 20 soldi. More than 150 students were present, and D. Curtius, Eigius, and many other doctors followed Curtius. At last, D. Andreas Vesalius arrived, and many candles were lighted, so that all should see.”

The wisps of smoke that arose from the melting candles undulated by the cadaver's feet and hands and rose above the dead flesh. Some spectators followed those tendrils skyward, but only for a few minutes, before they dispersed as they made it all the way to the painted ceiling. Then the students and spectators returned their eyes to the corpse and watched as a confident Vesalius worked on “the body cut up and prepared beforehand, already shaved, washed and cleaned.” He pointed to each organ, bone, nerve, vein, referring to Galen's claims, refuting them, as the crowd stood by, either awed or insulted.

B
y the time Galvani took the stage in the 1700s, some of the practices normally associated with the lectures and demonstrations had been done away with—such as the clear division of labor—though the theatricality still thrived. The historian William Brockbank noted that the theaters had been constructed less for practicality than to merge art and science, a way for the public to take part in the demonstrations that for so long had held an air of secrecy and mystery. “It is clearly connected not only with the history of medicine and of teaching, but also with the history of art. The theater arose out of the stream of ideas which flowed through Italy at the time of the Renaissance. Its purpose was to offer a performance,” Brockbank argued, “for an anatomical dissection those days was really more of a theatrical occasion than a lesson. The outstanding personalities and authorities of the town were invited to be present. It was the first laboratory, the first place where scientific research was carried out.”

For much of Galvani's earlier career, he had been intrigued by other areas of medicine, including the study of the bone structure, the uterus, and particularly the development of the ear canals in humans and birds. But as time passed, he seemed less interested in those research subjects, especially after a fellow medic and researcher appeared to have used some of Galvani's publications on ear canals in his own text. A scandal broke out, but Galvani did nothing about it—either because he didn't relish such a public display of anger or perhaps because he'd become so absorbed by the study of animal electricity, he'd lost his passion for any other medical interest.

Whatever the reason, the seriousness of his behavior and his steady nerves came in handy in 1791. On March 27, he published his findings on animal electricity in the scientific journal of the Bologna Academy and the Institute of Sciences.
De viribus electricitatis in motu musculari commentarius
(Commentary on the effects of electricity on muscular motion)
was the culmination of nearly eleven years of experiments. Many in the academic world read Galvani's work with interest, and though impressed, they were not greatly disturbed because Galvani was not the first, or the earliest, scientist to look into animal electricity. Two other Bolognese before him, Floriano Caldani and Giambattista Beccaria, had been able to elicit twitches from dead frogs. Galvani mentioned their findings in the
Commentaries
. But unlike Caldani and Beccaria, Galvani's scope was so massive, his research and experimentation so extensive, it was difficult to set it aside without giving it further thought.

Galvani spoke of the moment when all of his experiments culminated: “Accordingly, on an evening early in September 1786, we placed some frogs horizontally on a parapet, prepared in the usual manner by piercing and suspending their spinal cords with iron hooks. The hooks touched an iron plate; behold! A variety of not infrequent spontaneous movements in the frog. If, when they were quiescent, the hook was pressed with the finger against the iron surface, the frogs became excited almost as often as this type of pressure was applied.”

Apparatus formerly used by Luigi Galvani. This is a small plate electrostatic machine, used to harness electricity. One of the many objects found in his laboratory.

He was showing that the frogs' muscle contractions were the result of the vital fluid that circulated within their bodies. This fluid was then instigated to revitalize by a metallic arc that touched the crural nerves and muscles. The fluid then became excited, so to speak, which caused the movements in the frogs' limbs. Galvani's nephew Giovanni Aldini said this was something “no one had attempted” before. He came to believe that Galvani's “ingenuity” led to an understanding that “we may have muscle disposed to contraction by mere passage of a spark.”

Throughout Europe, from France to England and Germany, scientists began replicating Galvani's experiments.

At the University of Pavia, Bassiano Carminati, a professor of anatomy, began to scrutinize a copy of the
Commentaries
sent to him by Galvani. Carminati was a well-known professor whose acquaintances included a wide range of colleagues and students, one of whom was the renowned physicist Alessandro Volta. Eventually Carminati passed the
Commentaries
on to Volta, who had kept abreast of the latest so-called discoveries in animal electricity, as well as the scientists who delved into the field.

Ordinarily, Volta never considered animal electricity a valuable source of scientific study. But as he reclined at his desk in Pavia reading the
Commentaries
as Carminati had urged him to do, he changed his mind. He was intrigued by Galvani's proposals and even considered dabbling in these studies himself. In March 1792, he connected the muscles of a frog, dismembered in Galvani's style, to its exposed nerves, without the use of the so-called artificial electricity. Surprisingly, he interpreted the results in the same manner Galvani had. He even announced, “We have to adapt to the idea that animal electricity exists.” But he still had no real enthusiasm for the concept. He thought there was something odd in the experiments and doubted his findings. Even more, he doubted Galvani's.

Not long after Volta published his statements, Galvani received a letter from Bassiano Carminati that offered false praise and a certain measure of insult. Volta, Carminati explained, had been delving deeply into the subject of animal electricity, conducting experiments similar to Galvani's. But, as it stood, Carminati continued, Volta had also managed to disprove Galvani's claims, having “concluded that the deficiency of electric fluids exists on the part of the nerves . . . therefore, our distinguished Signor Volta, wishes the contrary of your opinion, which is not yet held as a settled thing.”

This was a blow to Galvani. His findings, nearly eleven years of detailed experiments and studies, not to mention the thousands of frogs he had butchered, were being rebuffed in a matter of months. This was very much in keeping with Volta's character.

A
lessandro Volta's upbringing had not given any inkling that he would go on to do great things. True, in 1800 he did construct the so-called voltaic pile, the first electric battery, which he created by further developing Luigi Galvani's ideas. He arranged two metals and a piece of fabric immersed in brine on a circuit, which then sparked an electric current. A few days later, he expanded the metals and alternated the zinc with copper, which produced a higher conductivity. He connected those with a wire and then noticed electricity flowing between the newly named voltaic pile and the wire itself. This new discovery revolutionized science in the nineteenth century. The medic Anthony Carlisle, William Godwin's friend, used the pile to experiment with water. And even Humphry Davy fiddled with it.

He had been born into aristocracy in the northern Italian city of Como, in the Lombardy region. His father, Filippo, died when Alessandro was eight years old—not that his death made that much of a difference. Even when alive, Filippo's propensity for stepping in and out of his children's lives made him seem like a semiabsent parent. However, his passing did cause financial instability for the family. Alessandro's mother, Maddalena, came from Italian nobility, but her title was in name only. When she became a widow with a brood of children, the family nearly sank into destitution.

Luckily, in 1756 the family learned that an uncle had died, bequeathing them a sizable inheritance. They suddenly found themselves owners of various properties, parcels of land in and around the vicinity of Como and a number of large and small homes, which they rented out, along with some estates where they could live. The money also allowed them to pursue a life of leisure, the indulgence of desires, even some that were wicked. As Alessandro grew from a boy into a teenager, those closest to him noticed the striking similarities between him and his dead father. Like his father, Alessandro had a taste for the good life; he liked to party. He could always be found enjoying himself at concerts, operas, feasts, any occasion where the liquor flowed freely and the women were willing and able.

Also like his father, he attended a school run by the Jesuits, though he quit after barely a year. Along with many young people of his age and social standing, he was attracted to the literary and scientific worlds.

Given his family connections, it was relatively easy for him to find patrons who would advance his aspirations. He also had an odd combination of ambition and conformity: he was willing to adhere to a particular philosophy if his own needs were met. In the early 1760s—the author Giuliano Pancaldi says it was between 1762 and 1764—Volta wrote a prose poem of 492 verses in which he tried to bring scientific rationale to those phenomena for which rational meaning had yet to be found, such as lightning. This not only sparked an interest in his own and others' literary works, it also brought about a desire to begin corresponding with those whose interests matched his own, scientifically, but also literarily—the so-called natural philosophers.

One such man was Giambattista Beccaria, whose favor and input Volta wanted and needed. Despite Volta's numerous letters, the older man refused to indulge him. Still undaunted, Volta continued to seek assistance from scholars who were not well-known but who would give him opportunities for advancement. In so doing his facility for social interaction developed—what one might call the simple ability to flatter people in the right positions—a quality that garnered him numerous opportunities as a lecturer and speaker, as well as interactions with various ladies of important means, to whom he attached himself.

He was known for his charismatic personality, which he honed carefully during years of social activities as well as his numerous lectures. This gave him the upper hand during the controversy with Luigi Galvani. Unlike Galvani, who came across as reserved, or worse, even cold, Volta had a gregarious demeanor that put his colleagues and acquaintances at ease. His knack for showmanship helped his pursuit not only of peers, but also of patronage.

By the time of Galvani's
Commentaries,
Volta had been teaching at the University of Pavia since 1778, with electricity, not animal electricity, at the forefront of his career. But the reason Galvani's experiments changed his mind, most especially, was because he became convinced that Galvani had made a mistake, a somewhat obvious mistake.

Was it possible, Volta wondered, for a frog to act as a conductor? As his experiments continued, he came to realize it was not the frogs that possessed the so-called vital fluid, as Galvani proclaimed. What actually made them twitch was the metal of the outside apparatus that Galvani used, which then came into contact with a humid body. The metal produced the actual twitching, not the frog.

The scientific community and those who knew both parties geared up for a scientific showdown between two great minds, each eager to prove his own theories and disprove the other's. But it was not to happen.

On December 4, 1798, while the controversy was still in full swing, Luigi Galvani died, seemingly taking with him the notion of animal electricity, because Volta and his supporters had shed great doubt on Galvani's findings. By this time, Galvani had become a broken man. Lucia, his greatest supporter, had also died, and her death sapped the enthusiasm he had always possessed for his studies and research. In addition, the academic world in which he had been enveloped for decades was also in turmoil.

Along with a handful of other professors, Galvani had refused to swear allegiance to the constitution of the Cisalpine Republic, which meant he had been stripped of all his academic duties and honors. His nephew, Giovanni Aldini, had tried to persuade him to reconsider his stance, but Galvani refused to back down. Eventually, thanks to Aldini, Galvani was given the title of emeritus professor, though by then it was too late. Still, upon Galvani's death, Aldini decided he would restore Galvani's ruined reputation.