Alessandro Volta (1745–1827) was an Italian scientist, best known for inventing the battery, the first practical method of creating electricity. As a pioneer of electrical science, he also made a number of important advances in the field, including, in 1775, the construction of a device called an "electrophorus", which generated static electricity. But, unbeknown to Volta, it had already been invented in 1762 by the Swedish physicist Johann Wilcke (1732–96). In the following year, 1776, Volta discovered the gas methane, and worked out a way to isolate it from other substances. He devised experiments on the gas, such as the ignition of methane by an electric spark in a closed vessel.

Galvani's experiments

In 1771 another Italian scientist Luigi Galvani (1737–98) began a series of experiments in which he caused muscular contractions in the legs of a dead frog by touching its nerves with a metal scalpel charged with static electricity. Galvani concluded that animal tissue itself must contain a vital force which he termed "animal electricity". He believed it to be a new form of electricity, one that flowed through the body's nerves as an "electrical fluid" to the muscles, causing movement in them.

First battery

Volta doubted that the electricity came from animal tissue, so, in order to disprove Galvani's theory, he invented a device known as the voltaic pile in around 1800. Constructed from alternating discs of zinc and silver, each separated by pieces of cardboard soaked in brine (salty water), the pile produced a steady electric current—the first time anyone had achieved that.