Piccolino Marco
Dipartimento di Biologia, Universita di Ferrara, Via Borsari, Ferrara.
J Hist Neurosci. 2008;17(3):335-48. doi: 10.1080/09647040701420198.
The scientific endeavor that led Luigi Galvani to his hypothesis of "animal electricity," i.e., of an electricity present in a condition of disequilibrium between the interior and the exterior of excitable animal fibers, is reviewed here with particular emphasis to the role played by visual images in Galvani's path of discovery. In 1791 Galvani formulated his model of neuromuscular physiology on the base of the image of a muscle and a nerve fiber together as in a "minute animal Leyden jar." This was the last instance of a series of physical models that accompanied Galvani's experimental efforts in the search of a theory capable of accounting for the electric nature of nerve conduction in spite of the many objections formulated in the eighteenth century against a possible role of electricity in animal physiology.
本文回顾了引导路易吉·伽伐尼提出“动物电”假说的科学探索过程，即存在于可兴奋动物纤维内部和外部不平衡状态下的一种电，特别强调了视觉图像在伽伐尼发现过程中所起的作用。1791年，伽伐尼基于肌肉和神经纤维像“微小的动物莱顿瓶”一样在一起的图像，构建了他的神经肌肉生理学模型。这是一系列物理模型中的最后一个例子，这些模型伴随着伽伐尼的实验努力，以寻找一种能够解释神经传导电性质的理论，尽管在18世纪有许多人反对电在动物生理学中可能发挥的作用。
