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(Investigator 45, 1995 November)
On a stormy night in Switzerland in 1816 four people swapped ghost stories. They were English poet Lord Byron, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his new wife Mary Wollstonecraft and Byron’s friend Dr Polidori. That night the idea for the story of Frankenstein was born. The book was
published in
1818. In the
story
a student named Frankenstein used corpses from cemeteries and
dissecting
rooms to construct a monster which he then animated with electricity.
In 1823
Frankenstein
appeared on stage in
five versions including an opera. In 1910 came the
first
screen version. Subsequent movies were: 1915
Life Without
Soul
Constructing a
monster
from bits from
various
corpses and giving it life with electricity is and will be a
technological/scientific
impossibility. However something similar – a creature created via
cloning
combined with gene manipulation – may be possible.
If you've seen more than six or seven of the movies you might ask yourself: "Why do I find this so fascinating?" (B M)
Re: Article of Frankenstein (Investigator 46, 1996 January)
The concluding paragraph on page 51 reads,
"Constructing a monster from bits and pieces from various corpses and
giving
it life with electricity is and will be a technological/scientific
impossibility."
Really?!
In view of the advances
made in medical
technology
over the past couple of decades how can the writer be so absolutely
sure?
Severed body parts, including fingers, toes, ears, penises, arms and
legs
have all been restored to their owners. Organ transplants are
commonplace.
Bones, skin and cartilage can be grown and grafted. Seen recently on TV
– a
human ear being grown on the back of a hairless mouse, and baboons' and
pigs' hearts about to be transplanted into humans. Tissue and organ
rejection
has been the major problem in the past, but has increasingly been
overcome.
Using "bits and pieces" to repair or even create a body may not be as
far-fetched
as the writer would have us believe!
Harry Edwards
NSW |