{"id":6779,"date":"2024-05-14T12:20:21","date_gmt":"2024-05-14T12:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=6779"},"modified":"2024-05-14T12:21:55","modified_gmt":"2024-05-14T12:21:55","slug":"word-of-the-day-galvanic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2024\/05\/14\/word-of-the-day-galvanic\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Galvanic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s word of the day, courtesy of Wordsmith\u2019s \u201cA Word A Day\u201d email, is galvanic<\/em>. The –ic<\/em> suffix should make it clear that galvanic is an adjective. According to the Wordsmith, it means, \u201cStimulating; energizing; shocking\u201d and \u201cRelating to electric current, especially direct current.\u201d Dictionary.com lists the first definition as their third definition: \u201cpertaining to or produced by galvanism; producing or caused by an electric current,\u201d and \u201caffecting or affected as if by galvanism; startling; shocking\u201d and \u201cstimulating; energizing\u201d (https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/galvanic<\/a>). The first two definitions are those generally annoying kind that require one to look up another word, but in this case doing so leads directly to the etymology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the adjective galvanic<\/em> is derived from the noun galvanism<\/em>. According to Etymology.com, it entered the language in 1797, \u201csee galvanism<\/em> + -ic. Perhaps from or based on French galvanique<\/em>\u201d (https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/search?q=galvanic). Galvanism<\/em> also entered the language in 1797, \u201c\u2019electricity produced by chemical action,\u2019 1797, from French galvanisme <\/em>or Italian galvanismo<\/em>, from Luigi Galvani <\/em>(1737-1798), professor of anatomy at Bologna, who discovered it c. 1792 while running currents through the legs of dead frogs\u201d (https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/word\/galvanism<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merriam-Webster gives this under Word History: \u201cThe French words galvanisme <\/em>and galvanizer <\/em>were apparently introduced by Alexander von HUMBOLDT<\/a> in a letter, dated January 24, 1796 (\u2018Lettre de F. Humboldt \u00e0 M. Pictet \u2026 sur l\u02bcinfluence de l\u02bcacide muriatique oxygen\u00e9 et sur l\u02bcirritabilit\u00e9 de la fibre organis\u00e9e, lue a l\u02bcInstitut national\u2019), published in the Magasin encyclop\u00e9dique, ou Journal des sciences, des lettres et des arts <\/em>(L\u02bcan quatri\u00e8me [1795],) pp. 462-72. In a footnote Humboldt states \u2018Les mots de galvanisme, galvaniser, dont je me sert, sont form\u00e9s d\u02bcapr\u00e8s ceux de magn\u00e9tisme, magn\u00e9tiser. Ils sont recommendables pour sa bri\u00e9vet\u00e9.\u2019 (\u2018The words galvanism, galvanize, which I make use of, are modeled on magnetism, magnetize. They are commendable for their conciseness\u2019)\u201d (https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/galvanism<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was in college and grad school, I had to read articles from pretty old journals that would include quotations from German, French, Latin, and Greek, and the authors wouldn\u2019t translate them for the reader. It was like they were expecting everyone to have a reading knowledge of multiple languages, and maybe we should have had. But it was a bit annoying because if you didn\u2019t have a reading knowledge of the quoted language, you had to find a classmate who did and would translate the passage for you. But today we have Google Translate, so I\u2019m going to quote the title of the letter for you, starting with \u201csur<\/em>\u201d: \u201con the influence of oxygenated muriatic acid and on the irritability of organized fiber, read at the National Institute.\u201d The publication\u2019s translation awkwardly reads, \u201cEncyclopedic magazine, or Journal of sciences, letters and arts (L\u02bcan fourth).\u201d I assume that last thing means the fourth edition. And if you\u2019re not familiar with higher education, please understand that a \u201cletter\u201d is not necessarily a letter to the editor; it\u2019s just a shorter paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luigi Galvani (1737-1798) was born in Bologna to a goldsmith (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Luigi_Galvani<\/a>). He attended the University of Bologna and studied medicine, as his father wanted him to (https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/Luigi-Galvani<\/a>). \u201cOn obtaining the doctor of medicine degree, with a thesis (1762) De ossibus on the formation and development of bones, he was appointed lecturer in anatomy at the University of Bologna and professor of obstetrics at the separate Institute of Arts and Sciences\u201d (https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/Luigi-Galvani<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a professor, he both taught and did research, and his research began to focus on electrophysiology: \u201cNumerous ingenious observations and experiments have been credited to him; in 1786, for example, he obtained muscular contraction in a frog by touching its nerves with a pair of scissors during an electrical storm. Again, a visitor to his laboratory caused the legs of a skinned frog to kick when a scalpel touched a lumbar nerve of the animal while an electrical machine was activated. Galvani assured himself by further experiments that the twitching was, in fact, related to the electrical action\u201d (ibid.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His experiments led to his conclusion that \u201canimal electricity\u201d was a force in animals that caused the firing of muscles. He briefly faced a bit of controversy when Alessandro Volta, professor of physics at the University of Pavia, disputed the results, suggesting an alternative theory as to why the dead frog\u2019s muscles twitched when contracted by metal, but Galvani showed through more experiments that his theory was indeed on target. But the disagreement was an amicable one, and it was Volta who coined the word galvanism<\/em> (ibid.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mary Shelley made reference to galvanism<\/em> in her 1818 novella Frankenstein<\/em>, which, as you probably recalled, involved the re-animation of dead human body parts into a human monster. Frankenstein accomplished this feat using electricity to bring his monster to life. Sadly, no amount of galvanic activity by scientists over the last 200 years has been able to replicate Frankenstein\u2019s results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s image is from an article by Timothy Jorgensen (https:\/\/lithub.com\/the-italian-electrical-scientist-who-may-have-inspired-frankenstein\/<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s word of the day, courtesy of Wordsmith\u2019s \u201cA Word A Day\u201d email, is galvanic. The –ic suffix should make it clear that galvanic is an adjective. According to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[238,395,430,284],"class_list":["post-6779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","tag-dictionary","tag-etymology","tag-frankenstein","tag-linguistics","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6781,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6779\/revisions\/6781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}