"Galvani appears never to have acquired much general knowledge of electricity: Volta, on the other hand, had laboured at this branch of knowledge from the age of eighteen, through a period of nearly thirty years; and had invented an electrophorus and an electrical condenser, which showed great experimental skill. When he turned his attention to the experiments made by Galvani, he observed that the author of them had been far more surprized than he needed to be, at those results in which an electrical spark was produced; and that it was only in the cases in which no such apparatus was employed, that the observations could justly be considered as indicating a new law, or a new kind of electricity. He soon satisfied himself (about 1794) that the essential conditions of this kind of action depended on the metals;—that it is brought into play most decidedly when two different metals touch each other, and are connected by any moist body;—and that the parts of animals which had been used discharged the office both of such moist bodies, and of very sensitive electrometers. The animal electricity of Galvani might, he observed, be with more propriety called metallic electricity. ...The term "animal electricity" has been superseded by others, of which galvanism is perhaps the most familiar."