Frog battery: Difference between revisions

[[File:Frog battery from Bird.jpg|thumb|200px|Bird's diagram of a frog battery, 1848]]

The first frog battery was constructed by [[Eusebio Valli]] in the 1790s with a chain of 10 frogs. Valli had difficulty understanding all of his own results; he followed [[Luigi Galvani]] in believing that ''animal electricity'' (or [[galvanic electricity]]) was a different phenomenon from metal-metal electricity (or [[voltaic electricity]]), even denying its existence. [[Alessandro Volta]]'s theory was proved correct when he succeeded in constructing the [[voltaic pile]] without the use of any animal material. Because Valli found himself on the wrong side in this dispute, and refused to change his opinion despite the evidence, his work has become a bit of a backwater and his frog battery is little known and poorly documented.<ref>Bird (1848), p.344<br />*Valli, p.155, Experiment 122 uses 10 frogs<br />Kipnis, pp.144-145</ref>

[[Leopoldo Nobili]] built a frog battery in 1818 out of complete frog legs which he called a '''frog pile'''. He used this to investigate animal electricity but his experiments were strongly criticised by Volta who argued that the true source of electricity was dissimilar metals in the external circuit. According to Volta, fluids in the frog merely provided the electrolyte.<ref>Clarke & Jacyna, p.199<br />Clarke & O'Malley, p.186<br />Hellman, p.31</ref>