To: Gib Bogle who wrote (38685 ) 4/22/2007 8:43:02 AM From: E. Charters Respond to Schocking ...to galvanise means to coat with protective coating by either hot dipping or solution-precipitation onto the more cathodic ferrum...Galvanic action ... thus the metaphor of stimulus preceded the modern idea of protective coating.. but it is all from electricity which is the metaphor for impetus that we use in our language..Originally, galvanization was the administration of electric shocks (in the 19th century also termed Faradism, after Michael Faraday). It stemmed from Galvani's induction of twitches in severed frogs' legs, by his accidental generation of electricity. This archaic sense is the origin of the meaning of galvanic when meaning 'affected/affecting, as if by a shock of electricity; startled'[1]. Its claims to health benefits have largely been disproven, except for some limited uses in psychiatry. See also: Galvanism, Violet wand In biology, galvanism is the contraction of a muscle that is stimulated by an electric current. The effect was named by Alessandro Volta after his contemporary, the scientist Luigi Galvani, who investigated the effect of electricity on dissected animals in the 1780s and 1790s. Galvani himself referred to the phenomenon as animal electricity, believing that he had discovered a distinct form of electricity. Volta, on the other hand, claimed that the movements were caused by contact with metals rather than by electricity. The modern study of galvanic effects is called electrophysiology, the term galvanism being used only in historical contexts. The term is also used to describe the bringing to life of organisms using electricity, as shown in Mary Shelley's work Frankenstein (which was influenced by galvanism) and people still speak of being 'galvanized into action'.
