Chrysti the Wordsmith > Radio Scripts

One of the meanings of the verb galvanize is to "stimulate to sudden action, to startle, to excite." For example, the devastating loss galvanized the entire team to claim subsequent victories. The term galvanize has an impressive life history, one that involves frog's legs and an Italian anatomist.

Luigi Galvani was born in Bologna, Italy in 1737. As professor of anatomy at the famous university in his hometown, Galvani's research projects were diverse -- from the structure of the ear in birds and humans, to the electrical properties of the torpedo ray. But a series of experiments with frog's legs was what placed Luigi Galvani conspicuously on the scientific and etymological landscape.

After dissecting a frog in his laboratory one day, Galvani discovered that the creature's lifeless limbs twitched and contracted when touched with electrically charged metal contacts. Galvani attributed this reaction to a force he called "animal electricity," a mysterious power that made dead tissue quiver, even for a moment, with life. Hundreds of subsequent experiments convinced him of the validity of his conclusions.

But Galvani's academic peers exploded his theory with counterclaims that it was merely the externally generated electricity that was responsible for muscle movement in dead animals. Galvani nevertheless remains enshrined in the verb galvanize: "to stimulate or rouse as if by electric current."

Radio Script > Galvanize