The Novel Nineteenth Century: Trends, Treatments, and Technologies in Nineteenth Century American Medicine

In 1791, Luigi Galvani conducted an experiment where he applied two different metals to a dead frog's crural nerve, which proceeded to twitch in convulse in response.

People continued to experiment with electricity and how it could be applied to living matter. Harnessing electricity to power technology was a relatively new phenomenon to the general public in the latter half of the nineteenth century.