Mention Frankenstein, and what springs to most people's minds is Boris Karloff鈥檚 portrayal of the 鈥渕onster.鈥� That's because they鈥檝e skipped the book and seen the movie, which is a true Hollywood-style horror story. In writing her novel, Mary Shelley did not intend to scare her readers鈥攚hat she penned was a work of science fiction that explored the consequences of allowing science to go astray. And she never used the term 鈥渕onster!鈥� To Mary, it was the 鈥淐reation,鈥� the 鈥淐reature鈥� or the 鈥淏eing.鈥� But where did young Mary, who wrote the classic in 1818 when she was only eighteen, get the idea of creating life in the laboratory?
Christopher Goulding, a researcher in English literature at the University of Newcastle, in England, thinks he has the answer. In a paper published in the May 2002 issue of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, he argues that Dr. James Lind, a nineteenth-century Scottish natural philosopher, (not the James Lind who discovered the link between citrus fruits and scurvy) was the model for the fictional Victor Frankenstein, who contrary to popular belief was not a doctor! He was a university student interested in medicine, chemistry, and electricity but never completed his education choosing instead to pursue his own research. What evidence does Goulding present? Mary's husband was the famous English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley who was educated at Eton, Goulding tells us, where his mentor was Dr. James Lind.
Passionate about science in general, Lind was particularly drawn to a new area of research, called galvanism. Back in the 1780s, Luigi Galvani had carried out the experiment that would forever enshrine his name in physics texts. He had made the stunning observation that static electricity was able to make the severed legs of a dead frog quiver as if they were alive. The electricity was generated by a Wimhurst machine, a device comprised of two disks that rotate in opposite directions and rub against metal brushes. Lind used one to re-create Galvani鈥檚 experiments, becoming the first British scientist to do so. He infected his young prot茅g茅 with his enthusiasm for science, as evidenced by the fact that Percy's room was filled with scientific apparatus.
It鈥檚 not surprising, then, that after Percy moved to London and married Mary, he dragged his new wife to a public lecture on galvanism, during which the lecturer employed a static electricity machine to 鈥渁nimate鈥� frog鈥檚 legs. Such public demonstrations had been pioneered by Giovanni Aldini, who had become fascinated by the effects his uncle Luigi Galvani had discovered and managed to convince the authorities in Bologna to donate the bodies of executed criminals for further study of galvanism. While he was a dedicated scientist, Aldini was also a showman, carrying out his experiments in a theatrical atmosphere open to spectators. He stimulated the severed heads not only of cows, horses, dogs but also of people with an electric current and demonstrated that the teeth could be made to chatter and the eyes roll.聽 But Aldini鈥檚 most dramatic experiments involved intact bodies.聽
Perhaps his most famous 鈥減erformance鈥� took place in 1803 at the Royal College of Surgeons in London. George Foster had been sentenced to hang for murder, and the judge had decreed, in a fashion not unusual for the times, that his body be used for anatomical dissection. In front of a large crowd of doctors and other spectators, Aldini went to work. As always, he generated an electric current with a 鈥渧oltaic pile,鈥� the forerunner of the modern battery. Developed by Alessandro Volta, based on Galvani鈥檚 observation, the pile consisted of a set of alternating zinc and silver plates separated by pieces of paper soaked in salt or sulphuric acid. In such an arrangement electrons flow from the zinc to the silver, generating a current.聽
Aldini connected a pair of metal rods to the top and bottom of the pile and proceeded to use them to prod Foster鈥檚 body. When he attached one probe to the ear and the other to the mouth, the jaw quivered and an eye opened. But the most spectacular result was produced when Aldini maneuvered one of the probes to the rectum. Foster鈥檚 body went into convulsions and his arms flew up! It seemed to the spectators that the dead man was on the verge of standing up! Of course he did nothing of the sort, but the audience did leave with some novel insight into the dramatic effects that an electric current could produce on muscular systems.
Others followed in Aldini鈥檚 footsteps, and it was likely such a 鈥減erformance鈥� that Percy and Mary attended. The demonstration of galvanism had quite an impact on Mary鈥攕he even dreamed of a stillborn baby being brought back to life with electricity. The stage was set for Frankenstein鈥檚 creation! In the preface to the 1831 edition, Mary explicitly mentions galvanism as the scientific principle behind the creation, but in the book, she gives no details about how Frankenstein brings the Creature life. It鈥檚 a good bet though that that the experiments of Galvani, Aldini and James Lind were in the back of her mind.
Now... go and read the book!
