was an Italian anatomist who discovered the relationship between electricity and animation in 1771. While dissecting a frog at a table where he had been conducting experiments with static electricity, Galvani touched an exposed sciatic nerve of the frog with his metal scalpel, which had picked up a charge. At that moment, he saw the dead frog's leg kick as if in life. He concluded that the twitching was evidence for the existence of "animal electricity," later shown to be erroneous by Volta. But, Galvani had discovered the electrical nature of the nerve-muscle function, thus establishing the basis for the biological study of neurophysiology and neurology. Galvani's name survives in the Galvanic cell, the galvanometer and in the word "galvanize".