Electrifying Experiments

To understand electricity, scientists experimented with it in any way they could.

Above: Here Jean Antoine Nollet reproduces Stephan Gray's “electric boy” experiment. An electrically charged boy hangs from insulating silk ropes and the scientist demonstrates how objects are statically drawn to his hands. A woman bends forward to poke the boy’s nose to get an electric shock. This memorable demonstration illustrates that the human body can conduct electricity. Frontispiece illustration. Nollet. Essai sur l'electricité des corps. Paris: Chez les freres Guerin, 1746.

Below: By the early 19th century, laypeople could acquire electrical apparatuses and perform experiments themselves, as in this painting where a family uses an electrifying machine to pass a current through their joined hands. Diana Sperling. May 25th. Henry Van electrifying -- Mrs. Van, Diana, Harry, Isabella, Mum, and HGS. Dynes Hall, ca. 1812-1823. Watercolor.

Galvanism

One notable scientist who experimented with electricity was Italian physician Luigi Galvani (1737–1798). Using dissected animal legs, he observed that muscles contracted and spasmed when stimulated by an electric current. Galvani believed this was due to an internal electricity inherent in animal tissue, which he called “animal electricity,” or galvanism. In his mind, this physical and metaphorical “spark” was a vital force that animated all living creatures. Although his theories were disproven, the “spark of life” theory proved intriguing to both scientists and artists, like Mary Shelley.

Right: portrait of Galvani.

Above: This print depicts Galvani’s famous experiments applying electric current to frogs’ legs in different variations, making them twitch. Also depicted are a lamb (Fig. 19) and a chicken leg (Fig. 20). Tabula VI. Galvani, Luigi. Opere edite ed inedite del professore Luigi Galvano. Bologna: E. dall’Olmo, 1841.

Masters of the Macabre

Scientists held public demonstrations of electricity as both experiments and entertainment. Galvani’s nephew, Giovanni Aldini (1762-1834), took his uncle’s animal experiments further: he performed public demonstrations using bodies of executed criminals, the only bodies legally available to science at the time. In 1803, he electrified the body of George Foster at Newgate Prison in London. For seven hours, in front of an amazed audience, he made the body move in ways he described as giving an “appearance of reanimation.”

In 1818, anatomist James Jeffray, assisted by physician Andrew Ure, performed an experiment similar to Aldini’s with the body of Matthew Clydesdale at the University of Glasgow, seen at right. Aldini believed galvanism could be used for resuscitation, but Jeffray and Ure believed electrifying a corpse could potentially bring it back to life.

Ure vividly described the results of his and Jeffray’s experiment in a journal article:

[When stimulating the supraorbital nerve in the forehead]... every muscle in his countenance was simultaneously thrown into fearful action; rage, horror, despair, anguish, and ghastly smiles, united their hideous expression in the murderer's face... At this period several of the spectators were forced to leave the apartment from terror or sickness, and one gentleman fainted.

Above: “Le docteur Ure galvanisant le corps de l’assassin Clydsdale.” In Louis Figuier. Les merveilles de la science. Paris: Furne, Jouvet et Cie, 1867.

Reviving the Apparently Dead

As experiments with electricity continued, interest in the physiology of death and possibilities of resuscitation grew. By the late 18th century, physicians had learned to distinguish between apparent death– when the patient only appeared dead and could be successfully resuscitated–and absolute death, which was irreversible.

Naturally, there was speculation that electricity could be used for resuscitation from apparent death. In 1809, Scottish surgeon Allan Burns first suggested a combination of electric shock and mouth-to-mouth ventilation, now commonly employed as cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Giovanni Aldini also advocated for electricity as the primary means of resuscitation.

It was in this scientific atmosphere an eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley (then Godwin) and her future husband Percy Shelley visited Lord Byron’s Alpine Villa in 1816. As entertainment, they competed to write ghost stories; Mary Shelley settled on the idea of a man-made creature, reanimated from death.

Galvanism and Frankenstein

Galvani’s idea of a “spark of life” influenced Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Shelley recalls her 1816 stay at Lord Byron’s villa in the preface to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein:

Many and long were the conversations between Lord Byron and Shelley, to which I was a devout but nearly silent listener. During one of these, various philosophical doctrines were discussed, and among others the nature of the principle of life, and whether there was any probability of its ever being discovered and communicated. …Perhaps a corpse would be re-animated; galvanism had given token of such things: perhaps the component parts of a creature might be manufactured, brought together, and endued with vital warmth.

Above: This print depicts Aldini’s experiments applying electric current to corpses. Plate 4, vol. 1. Aldini, Giovanni. Essai théorique et expérimental sur le galvanisme. Paris: Fournier fils, 1804.

Shelley invents Victor Frankenstein, a student of chemistry, whose studies lead him to discover how to reconstruct and reanimate a human being. His experiments with human remains and his own words echo the desires of James Jeffray and Andrew Ure:

….if I could bestow animation upon lifeless matter, I might in process of time (although I now found it impossible) renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption.