The Leyden Jar in Luigi Galvani’s thought: A Case of Analogical Visual Modeling

Abstract

In De viribus electricitatis in motu muscolari. Commentarius, Luigi Galvani offers an “analogical modeling” case where he “retrieves” the perceptual structure of the representation of the Leyden experiment pertaining to the electricity domain. In this way Galvani’s suspicion and surprise about the existence of an “animal electricity” were strengthened. Using “model based reasoning”, Galvani infers that what yields nervous fluid in the frog is the putting of the conductive arc of electricity on it, which also is a source of electricity.