Frankenstein
Science and Reanimation
Special thanks to
Khalif Boyd: Multimedia Design Engineer
Hersh Choksi: CEO
Junice Hwang: Still Frame Design Engineer
Science
 Luigi Galvani
 Giovanni Aldini
 Count Alessandro Volta
 Benjamin Franklin
 Johann Wilhelm Ritter
 Andrew Ure
 Professor James Jeffray
 What do all of these men have in common?
Dr. James Jeffray
Dr. Andrew Ure
 Scottish medical professor Andrew Ure convinced
his colleague, James Jeffray, to participate in an
experiment.
Andrew Ure and James Jeffray
Ure, knowing that a famous
murderer, Matthew Clydesdale,
was to be hanged, began to ask to
have the body for an experiment.
Ure and Jeffray conducted a
famous experiment on Clydesdale
on November 4, 1818.
Andrew Ure and James Jeffray
 Ure created a giant galvanic battery that
was attached to several nerves, including
the phrenic nerve just off the top of the
spinal column.
←
Andrew Ure and James Jeffray
 They passed a current through a recently
dead murderer, Matthew Clydesdale, using
a battery.
 Electricity was sent through different
nerves, making the corpse kick violently at
one point and at another grimace and
smile.
 When they sent the electricity through the
phrenic nerve, the man’s diaphragm began
pumping, making it seem he was breathing
again.
Andrew Ure and James Jeffray
 Witnesses thought Clydesdale had been
brought back to life — in other words,
reanimated.
 With retelling, the accounts got more and
more bizarre and gruesome. People swore
that Clydesdale had walked and talked.
 One account had it that Clydesdale actually
tried to escape and was only stopped when
Jeffray cut off his head with a special sword
blessed by some ministers!
Andrew Ure and James Jeffray
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (later
Shelley) read about the experiment
and it gave her the idea of a doctor
who had gone too far to try to bring
life to the dead.
Ure’s Notes to the Royal Society
 Every muscle of the body was immediately agitated with
convulsive movements resembling a violent shuddering from
cold. ... On moving the second rod from hip to heel, the knee
being previously bent, the leg was thrown out with such violence
as nearly to overturn one of the assistants, who in vain tried to
prevent its extension. The body was also made to perform the
movements of breathing by stimulating the phrenic nerve and the
diaphragm. When the supraorbital nerve was excited 'every
muscle in his countenance was simultaneously thrown into
fearful action; rage, horror, despair, anguish, and ghastly smiles,
united their hideous expressions in the murderer's face,
surpassing far the wildest representations of Fuseli or a Kean. At
this period several of the spectators were forced to leave the
apartment from terror or sickness, and one gentleman fainted.'
Special Thanks
 Curious Tales:Tales from a Hidden History by
George Rosie, Thomas Dunne Books, 2006, pp.
136–140.
 Illustration of Dr. James Jeffray, courtesy of the
University of Glasgow
http://www.universitystory.gla.ac.uk/images/UGSP00470_m.jpg
 Illustration of Dr. Andrew Ure, courtesy of the
Smithsonian Institution
http://www.sil.si.edu/digitalcollections/hst/scientificidentity/fullsize/SIL14-U001-02a.jpg
 Illustration of the phrenic nerve, courtesy of
Bartleby and NeuroTalk
http://www.bartleby.com/107/Images/large/image808.gif