Iyante’ Saunders

3/21/2018

Galvanism

What is Galvanism and how does it relate to frankenstein? Galvanism can be

defined as the effect of the application of electric current pulses through body tissues

that causes muscle contraction. Mary Shelley took her understanding of galvanism and

brought it to life in her book “Frankenstein”. During the time she wrote her book,

Galvanism was the newest scientific research being conducted in Europe.Late in the

18​th​ century, Scientist Luigi Galvani, who was experimenting on dissected frogs,

mistakenly touched a brass rod to a steel scalpel making a clear contraction of muscle

in a dead frog. This experiment lead to Mary Shelley creativity of this idea to be turned

into a book. And nearly 200 hundred years later this book is still majorly discussed.

Galvanism was an accident. Luigi Galvani didn’t purposely try to make a dead

frog leg move. But that’s what made it so interesting because a lot of things that are

found out scientifically aren’t always done purposely. Like in 1938 when Roy Plunkett

made teflon. He was trying to make refrigerators more home friendly when he

accidentally made this substance now named Teflon. Also many more everyday things

we use weren’t made purposely such as the microwave, velcro, coca cola and even

viagra was an accident. Today Galvanism is referred to as Electrophysiology and

scientists are aware that it is not an electrical fluid streaming from the brain.

Frankenstein was written in 1818, where Shelley took this newly found upon

scientific experiment and made it come alive. She explores the idea of
electromagnetically bringing back a person from the dead. “ I succeeded in discovering

the cause of generation and life; many more, I became myself capable of bestowing

animation upon lifeless matter” (Shelley 76). In the book Shelley brings up galvanism

once. Where Dr.Frankenstein describes how a lecture on electricity caused him to throw

away everything he knew about science. “Perhaps a corpse would be re-animated

galvanism had given token of such things…” (Shelley). Mary Shelley used the idea of a

monster to leave the audience in the understanding of a relationship between electricity

and a character personality. And to this day many authors are still inspired by Shelley’s

frankenstein.

Giovanni Aldini, Galvani’s nephew, Took his idea of galvanism and tried it on an

executed criminal. He used a public demonstration of ​electro-stimulation technique of

deceased limbs​ and applied electricity to various parts of the man body. ​On the first

application of the process to the face, the jaws of the deceased criminal began to

quiver, and the adjoining muscles were horribly contorted, and one eye was actually

opened. In the subsequent part of the process the right hand was raised and clenched,

and the legs and thighs were set in motion. Although Aldini wasn’t brought up in

Frankenstein galvanism was briefly discussed in chapter five ​“the creature awakened”.

This study of Galvanism is what Frankenstein one of the most popular books still

to this day. Luigi Galvani’s accident in his lab is what lead to Mary Shelley being able to

freely create what would happen if it was a human. A reviewer of the book even stated

“the book has ​‘an air of reality attached to it, by being connected with the favourite

projects and passions of the times”. Galvanism wasn’t even a concept but is now a
renamed scientific study. Because of Shelley’s creative mind we were able to imagine

what the effect of just the idea of galvanism would have on humans.

This book took Galvanism to whole new level and made it extremely realistic.

Galvanism was just an empty concept that seemed far fetched and was only studied on

dead frogs. When Aldini took this idea and broadened the spectrum from frogs to cows,

sheeps,pigs etc. was when it seemed more of a serious topic in science. He was fairly

successful with these experiments where he used batteries for electrical impulses. He

then went from dead animal corpses to human bodies which was one of the main

influences to this book.

In Conclusion, Frankenstein was a book that brought many peoples attention to

the many wonders of science. Galvani’s accident and Aldini’s prominent attitude is what

brought about such a wonderful animated and characterised book. The idea of

galvanism is boring but because of Aldini being so adamant on wanting to make it a real

thing is what made shelley’s book come to life.

Citations -

Bloomsliterature.com

Frankensteinproject.wordpress.com

Popularmechanics.com

Wikipedia.com

www.bl.uk