Science Becomes Electric: Dutch Interaction with the Electrical Machine during the Eighteenth Century

Promoting Aesthetic Experiences in Science Lessons: A Proposal for Instruction

“…Although frequently not being implemented by medicals, reported use of electricity in health issues was covering the cure of gout, rheumatism (Venice in 1747), blindness (Edinburgh in 1751), epilepsy, deafness, stiffened joints (Sweden in 1755) (Rowbottom & Susskind, 1984). Results were reported as successful; however, failures also existed, such as a girl with a lame arm became paralyzed after the treatment (Roberts, 1999).…”

“…In the mid-18th century, interest was focused on the effect of electricity on the nervous system (Roberts, 1999) and gave rise to the developing field of electrotherapy. Late 18th-century studies presented ways—how and when—to use electricity in health issues (e.g., Barneveld, 1785, in Roberts, 1999; Paets van Troostwyk & Krayenhoff, 1788). For example, Barneveld (1785, in Roberts, 1999) suggested three types of treatment which were the electric bath, spark treatment, and spark stream.…”

Medicine and Science in a New Medical-surgical Context: The Royal College of Surgery of Barcelona (1760–1843)

“…Neither the notions of Haller on irritability and sensitivity (Brazier 1984;Roberts 1999) 14 nor the Stahl's vitalism had conceived the possibility that electricity itself could produce the animation of the bodies. In the middle of the eighteenth century, the abbot and professor of experimental physics JeanAntoine Nollet (1700-1770) defined electricity as something with both irritating and stimulating characteristics simultaneously.…”

“…The nature of electricity was initially included among the chemical principia of the body (Seligardi 2001: 181-208). Nevertheless, after Alessandro Volta's experiments, 14 In 1745, Haller had anonymously published a review of studies on the German electricity in Bibliothe`que Raisonne´e des Ouvrages des Savants de l'Europe, quoted by Roberts, Lissa (1999). 15 Nollet, Jea-Antoine (1746), Essai sur l'electricite´des corps, París, Freres Guerin.…”

Civil Scientists: Dutch Scientists between 1750 and 1875

“…21 A contemporary observed how "people everywhere were experimenting with electricity and [how] anyone who did not own his own electrical machine no longer counted for much". 22 Indeed, as Lissa Roberts has stated:…”