Resumen de Tra Cambiamenti radicali e conservazione: L'indagine sui fenomeni bioelettrici nella germania del secondo ottocento

Armando de Palma, Germana Pareti

• This paper aims at illustrating the historical circumstances which led Julius Bernstein in 1902 to formulate a membrane theory on resting current in muscle and nerve fibers. It was a truly paradigm shift in research into bioelectrical phenomena, if qualified by the observation that, besides Bersntein, many other electrophysiologists between 1890 and 1902 borrowed ideas from the recent ionistic approach in the physical chemistry domain. But the Bernstein's subjective perception of that paradigm shift was that it constitued a mere re-interpretation of the so-dcalled pre-existence theory advanced by his teacher Emil du Bois-Reymond in the first half of the 19th century