Galvanism, discovered in the 1780's, is the use of electric current attached to living and nonliving tissue. Named after Luigi Galvani, he observed the legs of dead frogs twitching when metals and alloys that were magnetic and electrically connected by an electrolyte came into contact with them. He thought the source of the electricity was produced by the frogs muscular and nervous sytems when in fact, it was from the electric current. The physicist, Alessandro Volta made this discovery. He concluded that the electricity originated from the metals copper and zinc. He eventually created the battery cell. Mary Shelley believed that it could be possible for the dead to reanimated with electricity, "Perhaps a corpse would be reanimated; galvanism had given a token of such things; perhaps the component parts of a creature might be manufactured, brought together, and enduced with vital warmth" (Shelley 1831 Introduction).

https://library.si.edu/exhibition/fantastic-worlds/body-electric