The spark -- Catching up -- The anatomist's eye -- Cambridge, 1904 : the engineer -- The cathode ray oscilloscope -- The code -- Excitation and inhibition -- The messengers -- The squid giant axon -- The neuromuscular junction -- The giant axon impaled -- The war years -- Sodium unmasked -- The voltage clamp -- Aftermath -- Muscle : The new physiology -- More triumphs with microelectrodes -- The single ion channel -- Myotonic goats and migraines -- The swinging gate -- Departures
Summary
Galvani's Spark describes the gradual understanding of the nerve impulse. Proceeding from a chance observation on a frog leg, to studies on squid giant axons and bacteria, this book concludes with the increasing realization that ion channells are responsible for a variety of clinical disorders
