How did Luigi Galvani challenge Alessandro Volta’s explanation with pieces of the same material?

Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

Galvani, Luigi — Luigi Galvani Luigi Galvani in an illustration from *Le Journal de la Jeunesse*, Paris, 1880.

Luigi Galvani challenged Alessandro Volta’s assertion that muscular contraction was caused solely by the contact of two dissimilar metals. Volta argued that the frog's legs acted merely as an electroscope and that "metallic electricity" was the true source of stimulation.

To refute this, Galvani demonstrated that he could induce muscular action in the frog by using two pieces of the same material. Furthermore, in a later defense of his work, Galvani described experiments where he achieved muscular contraction without the use of any metal at all, by touching the exposed muscle of one frog with the nerve of another. This provided evidence for the existence of bioelectric forces within living tissue.1