Galvani's frog legs experiment. Italian anatomist Luigi Galvani (1737-1798) and his wife Lucia in 1780 in his laboratory at the University of Bologna demonstrating contractions of the muscles of the leg of a frog caused by electrical stimulation. The phenomenon was first noticed when his assistant touched an exposed nerve of the frog with a metal scalpel just as an electrostatic generator was emitting sparks. Volta later showed that the electricity came from the metals, not the muscles. Artwork published in 1867.