GALVANI, Luigi (1737-1798). De viribus electricitatis in motu musculari commentarius. Cum Joannis Aldini dissertatione et notis. Accesserunt Epistolae ad animalis electricitatis theoriam pertinentes. Modène: Société typographique, 1792.
GALVANI, Luigi (1737-1798). De viribus electricitatis in motu musculari commentarius. Cum Joannis Aldini dissertatione et notis. Accesserunt Epistolae ad animalis electricitatis theoriam pertinentes. Modène: Société typographique, 1792.

Details
GALVANI, Luigi (1737-1798). De viribus electricitatis in motu musculari commentarius. Cum Joannis Aldini dissertatione et notis. Accesserunt Epistolae ad animalis electricitatis theoriam pertinentes. Modène: Société typographique, 1792.

In-4 (278 x 210 mm). 3 planches dépliantes gravées, tirées en noir. (Quelques rousseurs.) Reliure moderne en demi-veau. Provenance: Huzard (cachet).

DEUXIèME éDITION, LA PREMIèRE DANS LE COMMERCE. Elle avait été précédée, en 1791, d'une publication à 12 exemplaires hors commerce. "In his experiments on the irritable responses provoked by static electricity in prepared frogs, Galvani inadvertently discovered the central phenomenon of galvanism: the production of electric current from the contact of two different metals in a moist environment" (Norman). BEL EXEMPLAIRE à GRANDES MARGES DE LA BIBLIOTHèQUE DE J.-B. HUZARD. Il avait réuni une collection fameuse d'environ 40000 volumes dans les domaines des sciences naturelles, médicales et vétérinaires. Norman 869; voir Dibner 59 et PMM 240 (pour l'édition de 1791).
Further details
Second edition (the work's first appearance was in the proceedings of the Bologna Academy of Science and as its offprint issued in about a dozen copies for private distribution), first edition in book form, first edition of Giovanni Aldini's commentary on animal electricity and of the appended exchange of letters in Italian between Galvani and Bassano Carminati on Volta's repetition of Galvani's experiments, which Volta interpreted correctly not as animal electricity but as chemical action. Galvani had hit quite by accident upon the central phenomenon of "galvanism": the production of an electric current between two metals in a moist environment. Contact electricity led to Volta's invention of the pile and the first continuous and controllable electric current. Galvani's influence on the modern development of energy, electrochemistry and electromagnetism is therefore an indirect one.

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