Shocking frogs : Galvani, Volta, and the electric origins of neuroscience / Marco Piccolino, Marco Bresadola ; translated by Nicholas Wade.

Includes bibliographies and index.

"Frogs, Torpedoes, and Sparks: Galvani, Volta, and Animal Electricity is an English translation of Rane, torpedini e scintille. Galvani, Volta e l'elettricità animale (Torino, Italy: Bollati-Boringhieri, 2003)"--

Machine generated contents note: -- Foreword -- Authors' preface to the Italian edition -- Authors' preface to the English edition -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Galvani, Volta and the forgotten electrophysiology -- 2. "Truth and usefulness": medicine and natural philosophy in the eighteenth century -- 2.1 Galvani's education in Bologna: the University, the Institute of Sciences, and the hospitals -- 2.2. Galvani's professional career -- 2.3 Galvani's early anatomo-physiological investigation -- 3. Animal spirits, vital forces, and electricity: nervous conduction and muscular motion in the eighteenth century -- 3.1 The debate on Hallerian irritability -- 3.2 The study of electricity in the eighteenth century -- 3.3. "Artificial" electricity, "natural" electricity and their role in the human body -- 3.4. Electric fish -- 4. Artificial electricity, the spark, and the nervous fluid: Galvani's early research on muscular motion -- 4.1 The beginning of electrophysiological experimentation -- 4.2. A "problematic" turn: the observation of contractions at a distance -- 4.3. Galvani's Saggio sulla forza nervea of 1782 -- 5. A "fortunate" discovery: Galvani's theory of animal electricity -- 5.1. The study of "airs" in relation to the living organism -- 5.2. The effects of atmospheric electricity on muscular motion and the discovery of metal arcs -- 5.3. The model of the muscle as an animal Leyden jar -- 5.4. The final elaboration of the theory of animal electricity -- 6. The controversy between Galvani and Volta over animal electricity: the first stage -- 6.1. Galvani's work in the scientific culture of the late eighteenth century -- 6.2 Volta's early research on animal electricity: quantification, muscular physiology, and the "special theory of contact electricity" -- 6.3. Galvani's Trattato dell'arco conduttore: the criticism against Volta and the notion of a circuit of animal electricity -- 7. The controversy between Galvani and Volta over animal electricity: the second stage -- 7.1. Volta's "general theory of contact electricity" -- 7.2. Galvani's reply to Volta's criticisms and the1797 Memorie sulla elettricità animale -- 7.3 Galvani's research on electric fish and the various forms of electricity -- 7.4 The conclusion of the Galvani-Volta controversy -- 8. The electrophysiological work of Alessandro Volta -- 8.1 Volta and life sciences -- 8.2 Volta's research on sensations -- 8.3 Sensation and muscular motion in Volta's "chain" experiments -- 8.4 Volta's research on electric fishes and the invention of the electric battery -- 9. From Galvani to Hodgkin and beyond: the central problem of electrophysiology in the last two centuries -- 9.1 Measuring animal electricity -- 9.2 Nervous conduction: propagated electric signal and the firing of a train of gun-powder -- 9.3. The involvement of animal electricity in nerve conduction demonstrated -- 10. Neuromuscular excitability: the modern explanation -- 10.1 Cell membrane and ions: a machine generating electric potentials -- 10.2. The electric mechanism of nerve conduction and muscle excitation -- 11. Concluding remarks -- Bibliography.

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