MEDICINE AND SCIENCE IN THE LIFE OF GALVANI,LUIGI (1737-1798)

Together with its companion paper, dealing with the contribution of Lu igi Galvani to the history of electrophysiology, this article provides a biographical sketch of the scientist of Bologna in the occasion of the bicentenary of his death. Studies on Galvani have focused mainly o n his ''discovery'' of animal electricity, and on the controversy with Alessandro Volts, Much less is known about Galvani's life and activit y as a teacher, physician, and researcher in the fields of comparative anatomy, physiology, and chemistry of life. Yet, a balanced assessmen t of the significance and the role of Galvani's research in the histor y of science will be possible only after a historical reconstruction o f his entire activity. This should take into account aspects of Galvan i's life that have been little studied up to now: Galvani's scientific background, the scientific context in which his interest for muscular physiology arose, the interplay between his activity as a researcher and as a physician, the origin and characteristics of his experimental approach to biological studies, and the development of his experiment al research in the crucial period culminating in his electrophysiologi cal explanation of muscular motion. The present article aims at offeri ng a contribution in this direction. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc.