Truth In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

It has been said that truth can sometimes be stranger than fiction but, for some real life mad scientists, this statement is all too real. Three scientists that pushed the boundaries of life and death and became real life Dr. Frankensteins are Johann Dippel, Andrew Ure, and Giovanni Aldini. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, we are told a story of a doctor who creates a monster from pieces of dead bodies and brings this monster to life. This is a scenario from some peoples’ nightmares. But what if things just as insane as this experiment happened in real life? Many people would say that no one would ever go through with actions such as this. These mens’ experiments were so similar to that of Mary Shelley’s character that it is believed that they

Ure seemed to be a normal citizen who was actually a great person. He served as an army surgeon then he became a member of the “Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons”. He was a Professor of chemistry and physics and he also founded the Garnet Hill observatory. Ure just seemed like a smart man who took advantage of this intelligence, but Ure may have taken the advantages of his intelligence just a little too far. In the year 1818, Ure revealed secret experiments he had been performing. He had been performing these experiments on a man named Matthew Clydesdale, a murderer and thief. Clydesdale had been executed by hanging. Ure claimed that “ by stimulating the phrenic nerve, life could be restored in cases of suffocation, drowning or hanging.” Ure also stated “The body was also made to perform the movements of breathing by stimulating the phrenic nerve and the diaphragm.” He had been performing many experiments on the corpse of Clydesdale, trying to bring the corpse to life. Ure really believed that this could be possible. As stated before, Ure kept these experiments secret for the most part. However, Giovanni Aldini didn’t bother to keep his experiments too