Historical Figures: Frankenstein (Origins)
*image is from http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bEZVYPK_CqM/UD1hJT9HuXI/AAAAAAAAEjM/2uv6JSrrU_g/s1600/the-frankenstein-monster-dick-bobnick.jpg
I watched that movie 'The Lazarus Effect' not too long ago. I hate it when the monsters win! Anyways, it made me wonder about bringing people back to life and what kind of shoddy consequences might come with that. Unlike the creepy little movie I was more concerned about brain damage, decay, loss of quality of life or... well.... some kind of zombie effect. Y'see, the thing is, I have heard about people being resuscitated and apparently that lack of oxygen to the brain, even after a few minutes, just does way too much damage. Every minute and every second counts. If you survive resuscitation you are lucky if you don't have some kind of permanent damage AND apparently the body starts to decompose only minutes after death.
Having said that, you can imagine, not only would someone who returns from death be 'different' to how you would remember them but they would be lacking in a lot of things. A lot. So imagine cut and pasting someone together like in that story 'Frankenstein'. If successful, what kind of humanoid thingy would we be looking at? Surely you have heard of Mary Shelly's 'Frankenstein?' Haven't you? Back before TV's, iPads and the internet 'Frankenstein' was written by a young adult, Mary Shelly. In her story a science student Victor Frankenstein creates a creature in a bit of a bent science experiment. Frankenstein created a monster from body parts collected from the deceased and reanimation was inspired by curiosity and existing scientific knowledge of the ability to reanimate limbs with electricity.
Your probably thinking it's not really an exciting story but if you can imagine reading the story for the first time of it's release in 1818, it didn't have the competition it did now and it was an amazing first of it's kind. It's been noted that Mary wrote her book from the idea of a story she formed after visiting Europe and Germany. During her travels she heard about Johann Konrad Dippel who experimented often with cadavers of both animals and humans. Johann was said to have been working on creating the Elixer of Life and transferring souls to bodies. Inspired by these legends and tales, having her own prior fascination about reanimating limbs and also after staying in the same castle of Johann's said experiments, Mary then wrote her book.
Frankenstein might be a fictional historical figure but Victor Frankenstein and his monster are historical figures all the same.
Mary Shelly was a young and amazing author of her own time. Good on her.
Johann Konrad Dippel was the inspiration for the book from local legends. I guess we will never really know the complete extent of his experiments but he is the real life Frankenstein.
Links
Brain Stuff. How twitching Fog legs and salt work. http://www.brainstuffshow.com/blog/how-twitching-frog-legs-work-a-little-gross-yes-but-fascinating/
The Guardian. Life after death: The science of human decomposition. https://www.theguardian.com/science/neurophilosophy/2015/may/05/life-after-death
NIH. CPR - Adult and child 9 years and older. https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000013.htm
Official Journal of the European Resuscitation Journal: Irrecoverable Brain Damage after Resuscitation. http://www.resuscitationjournal.com/article/0300-9572(76)90020-4/pdf
TIME. Did a real life Alchemist Inspire Frankenstein. http://time.com/3648440/mary-shelley-frankenstein-history/
Dancing frogs using electricity.