The frog was dead, but its legs moved. What did Alessandro Volta have to do with it?

Is there any electricity in a frog’s body?
If any, what happens to it when the frog has lived its best life, breathed its last, and can only become a part of lunch for some other creatures?

Back in the 18^th century, these were kind of things people were trying to understand about the surrounding world. Sometimes, knowledge (or what was thought as knowledge) came from accidental observations rather than from tedious research.

Following the legend, that’s what happened to Luigi Galvani’s assistant. They were working on some studies which involved frogs’ legs, and the assistant touched the sciatic nerve with a metal scalpel. The frog was dead, but its legs moved. Galvani became curious about the effect and was playing with it until he could repeat the process under control. He explained the phenomenon by a specific vital force which gives life to a body and for some reason, reacts to metal instruments after the body’s death.