Dr Galvani asked almost 600 university employees about their attitudes towards flu jabs for themselves and their families.

ECONOMIST: Flu vaccination

Dr Medlock and Dr Galvani reckon that if their approach were followed, that might be cut to just over 60m.

ECONOMIST: Influenza vaccination

Dr Galvani and her colleagues recognised that this was unlikely to be completely correct, even among people working in American universities.

ECONOMIST: Flu vaccination

She recorded her debt to the daring speculations of Erasmus Darwin, Charles's grandfather, about the spontaneous creation of life, and to the electrical researches of Aldini's uncle Luigi Galvani.

WSJ: Book Review: The Lady and Her Monsters

They began with dead frogs, whose sciatic nerves had been stimulated to make their legs twitch by no less a scientist than Luigi Galvani, the first to look into the matter, in 1771.

ECONOMIST: Andrew Huxley | The