Galvani looked around his laboratory and nodded his head with some satisfaction.  His greatest experiment to date was nearly ready to be put into motion, was nearly ready to change the very world.  A few adjustments here and there… double, triple, quadruple checks on every connection, every potentiality – nothing could be left to chance, not when he was so close to achieving his dream… just a few more adjustments…

‘Nearly there now,’ he said to himself, in Italian.

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Luigi Galvani roamed the streets of his hometown, Bologna, Italy, with a scowl on his face.  He couldn’t help the scowl, it was always with him these days, ever since the introduction of the fancy new lights which the Bologna City Council had voted to have installed along every street and every avenue in the bustling town just a little over five years earlier.  The Council had touted the installation as a necessary upgrade that would undoubtedly help to both ensure the safety of the local citizenry and also elevate the reputation of the town as an up-and-coming center of European sophistication.  As for the rather large expense, well, good things don’t come cheap and you get what you pay for and, of course, these new street lights were the very best. 

Imported from England and manufactured by Walsh & Williamson, LTD., the model year 1779 W&W Toad Oil Pole Lanterns were certainly a technological wonder of the age.  Even Galvani himself had to admit they were a vast improvement over the locally sourced ‘Flaming Toad on a Stick’ torches which had lit not only the highways and byways of the land for generations, but also the hallways and stairways and boudoirs and privies and, well, everywhere for that matter.  All civilized peoples across the entire globe lived their lives by toad light.  The first thing one did in the morning was to spark a toad and the last thing one did at night was to be sure all of the toads had been extinguished.  And it had been that way for an age.

But, the world doesn’t stand still and progress is unrelenting.  And thus, the new-fangled Toad Oil Lanterns, which used only the refined oil-of-toad and not the entire creature itself, came into existence.

Quickly gone was the old toad on a stick.  Gone were the toad vendors with their large sacks full of toad.  No more cries on the street of, “Toad here, get your toad here”.  Oh, you could still find some mini-toads on a stick for birthday cakes and the like, a quaint reminder of an age only recently disappeared.  But most of the related crafts and craftspeople had already faded away; only five years in and already the esoteric knowledge and hard-won skills were being forgotten.  Replaced, instead, by mechanized Toad Oil Extraction facilities, or T.O.E.’s.

The T.O.E.’s were vast mills set up along the banks of local river systems which contained long rows of toad squeezing presses, powered by enormous water wheels – overshot, undershot, pitch-back – all manner of hydropower was employed in the great creaking, clanking, cacophonous beasts of industrial output.  On occasion, there might be a small manual toad pressing pen arranged in a garden setting out in front of the facility where young girls, local maidens hired for the theatrical exhibition, would daintily step on faux-toads while a company spokesperson addressed the assembled crowd and waxed poetic about the benefits of toad oil production.  But it was all just window dressing for an industry grown nearly out of control amidst its unbridled success.

However, that wasn’t the worst of it, at least not to Galvani’s way of thinking.  No, the worst of it was the smell.  The godawful smell of burning toad oil which now permeated everything in the city and which was the cause of his persistent scowling.

Why was it that a flaming toad on a stick emitted a neutral odor and yet concentrated toad oil burned with a stench to rival Lucifer’s armpit?  It was a question without answer, and a situation which Galvani could not allow to continue unchallenged.  And so, he had thought long and hard on the problem, had ruminated upon it ad nauseum, had tossed and turned during sleepless nights and had burned many a midnight toad until, finally, he believed he had his solution.

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Galvani looked around his laboratory and nodded his head once more.

Strung around the room at a height of approximately eight feet was an extrusion of copper wiring which was secured at regular intervals along its entire length by way of being looped for several courses around insulating porcelain cylinders, which had themselves been affixed to the plaster walls with spikes driven through holes in their centers.  The continuous strand of conductive metal both started and ended upon one of the many workbenches scattered about the space, such that he could bring both ends together before him, within easy reach.

Upon the same workbench, Galvani had amassed a huge pile of Leiden Jars, a newly discovered device which allowed for the storage of an electrical charge and which were a critical component for the experiment which was about to take place.

He swept his gaze around the room one last time, his eyes following the track of the large gauge copper and as he did so, he re-counted the frogs which he had so painstakingly hung from the heavy wire with their own individual strands of copper, hooked onto the main line and wrapped around each frog’s neck like a small noose.

‘Man, oh, jeez, I’ve got a lot of frogs,’ Galvani thought to himself, in Italian, after counting all 137 of the dark green amphibians for the tenth time or so.

Finally, satisfied that he had made all preparations and taken all precautions, Luigi Galvani activated his new string of electrical frog lights by making contact with the stacked Leiden Jars, first with one end of the wire and then the other…

He wasn’t exactly sure what he expected to happen – would the frog lights be ‘instant on’, or would they, like the flaming toad lights of old, take some time to come up to full brightness.  Would they glow green through their skin, or would they give off some other variation of light, perhaps white or frog-belly yellow.  Would there be any associated noises, or odors and, if yes to the odors, would the smell at least be less offensive than the Toad Oil Stench which so annoyed the scientist and inventor.  Regardless, whatever it was that he might have expected, it is not, alas, what occurred.

To his frustration, the frogs did not emit any visible light whatsoever, instead, they began to spasm and convulse in their positions along the wall.  The wire rippled and swayed as the asynchronous palpitations threatened to bring the whole experiment to a catastrophic end.

‘More power!’ Galvani thought to himself, as he brought additional Leiden Jars online and his desperation mounted, ‘Cease your infernal dancing and unleash your internal fluorescence!’ he beseeched the wriggling mass of uncooperative copper and frog.

Finally, the experiment did indeed tear itself apart; frogs began to rain down like a Biblical plague from the Old Testament, some bouncing off equipment or various work surfaces, some flat-splatting on the cold tile floor.  And the copper let go and the electrical contact was lost and Galvani was left dejected and alone in his darkening lab as the sun began to set and the precinct wardens began to walk their routes and to light the despised Toad Oil Lanterns.  And the left side of his mouth began to twitch uncontrollably as one last frog fell from on high and landed, with ribbons of steam still rising from its amphibian form, on top of his head.   

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That night Luigi Galvani had a dream – he was sitting in a Café having an espresso and a gelato and reading the evening paper, the headline of which stated, ‘Alessandro Volta announces the grand opening of his new Dancing Frog Revue’, and the dream Galvani threw his head back and laughed and as he did a huge bolt of lightening split the air and then came the deafening roar of a monstrous thunderclap and Galvani, the real Galvani, sat suddenly upright in his bed, his eyes wide, his mind racing with excitement, “Lizard Lamps,” he said aloud, in Italian.