justice and fair play.



CONTACT ELECTRIFICATION AND THE ELECTRIC CURRENT

BY PROFESSOR FERNANDO SANFORD

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

IN a previous paper in this journal, entitled "The Discovery of
Contact Electrification" (November, 1913), it was shown that
the production of electric charges by the mere contact of two
dissimilar metals was first discovered by Rev. Abraham Bennett,
in 1789, and that it was verified by a different method by
Tiberius Cavallo, in 1795. Meantime, in 1791, Dr. Galvani
discovered the twitching of a frog's muscle, due to electrical
stimulus. Galvani's discovery was described by himself as
follows:[1]

[1] Translation from "Makers of Electricity," p 143.

'I had dissected a frog and had prepared it, as in Figure 2 of
the fifth plate, and had placed it upon a table on which there
was an electric machine, while I set about doing certain other
things. The frog was entirely separated from the conductor of
the machine, and indeed was at no small distance away from it.
While one of those who were assisting me touched lightly and by
chance the point of his scalpel to the internal crural nerves
of the frog, suddenly all the muscles of its limbs were seen to