- Eusebio Valli
Eusebio Valli (1755–1816) was a
physician from Lari,Pisa ,Italy , who in the shadows ofLuigi Galvani andAlessandro Volta also studied the phenomenon of "animal electricity" orbioelectricity .Animal electricity
Galvani's 1792 publication regarding the application of various metals to
frogs inspired a large number of other Italian scientists to research what Galvani had dubbed "animal electricity." Eusebio Valli was the first of this group to publish and wrote that the discovery had prevented him “to sleep during several nights”. In the following months Valli became an ambassador of animal electricity inEurope , making public displays of the galvanian experiments and publishing galvanian papers in cities such asTurin ,Paris , andLondon . In 1793 he published a 300-page volume in English, titled "Experiments on Animal Electricity" that at the time constituted the most organic analysis of all the problems ofgalvanism [1] .When Volta renounced the distinction of "animal electricity", something that Galvani who believed in
vitalism could not do, Valli stayed true to Galvani and called Volta's electricity of metals "imaginary." [2] Volta, of course, went on to invent thevoltaic pile , the progenitor of the battery.Valli also conducted experiments dealing with
vaccination , a field in which he was less successful. In 1788, he unsuccessfully tried to vaccinate humans against 'human plague' by inoculatingrinderpest (cattle plague) [3] . In testing potentialvaccines for theRabies virus on himself, he caused his own premature death.Popular references
Valli is named in
Xavier de Maistre 's "A Journey around my Room " at the beginning of Chapter 42:I was sitting by my fire, after dinner...when the vapours of digestion, rising to my brain, so obstructed the passages by which ideas make their way there from my sense that all communication found itself intercepted; and just as my senses were no longer transmitting any ideas to my brain, the latter, in its turn, could no longer send out the electrical fluid that animates them, the fluid with which the ingenious Dr. Valli resuscitates dead frogs. [4]
Sources
[http://ppp.unipv.it/Collana/Pages/Libri/Saggi/NuovaVoltiana_PDF/quattro.pdf The Controversy on Animal Electricity in Eighteenth-Century Italy: Galvani, Volta and Others] by Walter Bernardi
[http://ppp.unipv.it/Collana/Pages/Libri/Saggi/Nuova%20Voltiana5_PDF/p__143-162.pdf#search=%22eusebio%20valli%22 Changing a Theory: The Case of Volta’s Contact Electricity] , Nahum Kipnis
by Paul-Pierre Pastoret
"A Journey around my Room", by Xavier de Maistre, translated with notes by Andrew Brown. ISBN 1-84391-099-3
References
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