ABSTRACT
The invention of the Leyden jar at midcentury, and the work of Luigi Galvani and Alexander Volta at the end of the century, set the stage for the expansion of the electrical during the nineteenth. The Leyden jar permitted the storage of electricity and the generation of stronger shocks than older machines. John Wesley attributed the invention of the Leyden jar to Mr. de Muschenbroek, professor of natural philosophy at Leyden, in 1746 (Wesley, 1790: 13), while Rowbottom and Susskind refer to the “nearly simultaneous discovery” of “the first electrical condenser” to Muschenbroek in 1746 and von Kleist at the end of 1745 (1984: 7-10).
