From: "Saved by Windows Internet Explorer 8" Subject: Press Releases - - Newcastle University Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2010 20:59:50 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/related; type="text/html"; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0000_01CB3A61.4E43DC60" X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.0.6002.18197 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0000_01CB3A61.4E43DC60 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Location: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/press.office/press.release/item/1020770549
Newcastle University postgraduate, Christoper Goulding, has suggested = that=20 much of the medical inspiration for Mary Shelley's legendary novel=20 Frankenstein came not from central Europe, but from a retired = Scots=20 physician living in Windsor.
His claims, which are based on his PhD research into the scientific = interests=20 of the novelist's husband, the poet Percy Shelley, are published in an = article=20 in the May edition of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.
Most criticism of Mary Shelley's much-interpreted novel has focused = around=20 the moral and social issues it raises, with little attention having been = paid to=20 the underlying medical science from which the story arises. As Goulding = points=20 out, Mary Shelley owed much of her knowledge of science to her husband, = whose=20 interest in medicine and chemistry had been awakened by a mysterious = figure he=20 met whilst a schoolboy at Eton.
James Lind MD (1736-1812) lived in nearby Windsor whilst Percy = Shelley was at=20 Eton, and was approved by the school as a suitable mentor for boys = interested in=20 science. Lind was probably one of the first people in Britain to conduct = electro-medical experiments to 'make dead frogs jump like living ones', = and in=20 the 1790s had privately suggested the use of electric shocks to cure = King George=20 III=92s apparent insanity. Lind=92s study was described as having = 'telescopes,=20 Galvanic batteries, daggers, electrical machines, and all the divers = apparatus=20 which a philosopher is supposed to possess'. Shelley was later to say of = his=20 mentor: 'I owe that man far =96 oh! Far more than I owe my father'.
Chris Goulding says of his article 'Mary Shelley=92s creation of = Frankenstein=20 was a work of genius, but the novel=92s science comes, via her husband, = from the=20 Scottish Enlightenment'
Further information can be found on Chris's website, at http://www.christopher-goul= ding.com/
Notes for Editors
This press release was issued by the Royal Society of Medicine, and = is=20 reproduced here with their kind permission. To view Christopher = Goulding's=20 article in full, please see the Royal Society of Medicine website http://www.rsm.ac.uk/press
The image which accompanies this article was produced by BBC Online, = and is=20 reproduced here with their kind permission. For the BBC Online article, = please=20 see http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/scotland/newsid_1959000/19593= 74.stm
For further information, please contact Melanie Reed, Press Office, = Newcastle=20 University, on 0191 222 7850 or press.office@ncl.ac.uk or = Rosamund=20 Snow, External Relations, The Royal Society of Medicine, on Tel: 0207 = 290 2904.=20
published on: 1st May 2002