The Lady and Her Monsters Read online

  This was a blow to Galvani. His findings, nearly eleven years of detailed experiments and studies, not to mention the thousands of frogs he had butchered, were being rebuffed in a matter of months. This was very much in keeping with Volta’s character.

  Alessandro Volta’s upbringing had not given any inkling that he would go on to do great things. True, in 1800 he did construct the so-called voltaic pile, the first electric battery, which he created by further developing Luigi Galvani’s ideas. He arranged two metals and a piece of fabric immersed in brine on a circuit, which then sparked an electric current. A few days later, he expanded the metals and alternated the zinc with copper, which produced a higher conductivity. He connected those with a wire and then noticed electricity flowing between the newly named voltaic pile and the wire itself. This new discovery revolutionized science in the nineteenth century. The medic Anthony Carlisle, William Godwin’s friend, used the pile to experiment with water. And even Humphry Davy fiddled with it.

  He had been born into aristocracy in the northern Italian city of Como, in the Lombardy region. His father, Filippo, died when Alessandro was eight years old—not that his death made that much of a difference. Even when alive, Filippo’s propensity for stepping in and out of his children’s lives made him seem like a semiabsent parent. However, his passing did cause financial instability for the family. Alessandro’s mother, Maddalena, came from Italian nobility, but her title was in name only. When she became a widow with a brood of children, the family nearly sank into destitution.

  Luckily, in 1756 the family learned that an uncle had died, bequeathing them a sizable inheritance. They suddenly found themselves owners of various properties, parcels of land in and around the vicinity of Como and a number of large and small homes, which they rented out, along with some estates where they could live. The money also allowed them to pursue a life of leisure, the indulgence of desires, even some that were wicked. As Alessandro grew from a boy into a teenager, those closest to him noticed the striking similarities between him and his dead father. Like his father, Alessandro had a taste for the good life; he liked to party. He could always be found enjoying himself at concerts, operas, feasts, any occasion where the liquor flowed freely and the women were willing and able.

  Also like his father, he attended a school run by the Jesuits, though he quit after barely a year. Along with many young people of his age and social standing, he was attracted to the literary and scientific worlds.

  Given his family connections, it was relatively easy for him to find patrons who would advance his aspirations. He also had an odd combination of ambition and conformity: he was willing to adhere to a particular philosophy if his own needs were met. In the early 1760s—the author Giuliano Pancaldi says it was between 1762 and 1764—Volta wrote a prose poem of 492 verses in which he tried to bring scientific rationale to those phenomena for which rational meaning had yet to be found, such as lightning. This not only sparked an interest in his own and others’ literary works, it also brought about a desire to begin corresponding with those whose interests matched his own, scientifically, but also literarily—the so-called natural philosophers.

  One such man was Giambattista Beccaria, whose favor and input Volta wanted and needed. Despite Volta’s numerous letters, the older man refused to indulge him. Still undaunted, Volta continued to seek assistance from scholars who were not well-known but who would give him opportunities for advancement. In so doing his facility for social interaction developed—what one might call the simple ability to flatter people in the right positions—a quality that garnered him numerous opportunities as a lecturer and speaker, as well as interactions with various ladies of important means, to whom he attached himself.

  He was known for his charismatic personality, which he honed carefully during years of social activities as well as his numerous lectures. This gave him the upper hand during the controversy with Luigi Galvani. Unlike Galvani, who came across as reserved, or worse, even cold, Volta had a gregarious demeanor that put his colleagues and acquaintances at ease. His knack for showmanship helped his pursuit not only of peers, but also of patronage.

  By the time of Galvani’s Commentaries, Volta had been teaching at the University of Pavia since 1778, with electricity, not animal electricity, at the forefront of his career. But the reason Galvani’s experiments changed his mind, most especially, was because he became convinced that Galvani had made a mistake, a somewhat obvious mistake.

  Was it possible, Volta wondered, for a frog to act as a conductor? As his experiments continued, he came to realize it was not the frogs that possessed the so-called vital fluid, as Galvani proclaimed. What actually made them twitch was the metal of the outside apparatus that Galvani used, which then came into contact with a humid body. The metal produced the actual twitching, not the frog.

  The scientific community and those who knew both parties geared up for a scientific showdown between two great minds, each eager to prove his own theories and disprove the other’s. But it was not to happen.

  On December 4, 1798, while the controversy was still in full swing, Luigi Galvani died, seemingly taking with him the notion of animal electricity, because Volta and his supporters had shed great doubt on Galvani’s findings. By this time, Galvani had become a broken man. Lucia, his greatest supporter, had also died, and her death sapped the enthusiasm he had always possessed for his studies and research. In addition, the academic world in which he had been enveloped for decades was also in turmoil.

  Along with a handful of other professors, Galvani had refused to swear allegiance to the constitution of the Cisalpine Republic, which meant he had been stripped of all his academic duties and honors. His nephew, Giovanni Aldini, had tried to persuade him to reconsider his stance, but Galvani refused to back down. Eventually, thanks to Aldini, Galvani was given the title of emeritus professor, though by then it was too late. Still, upon Galvani’s death, Aldini decided he would restore Galvani’s ruined reputation.

  In early January 1802, a respectable crowd of scholars and doctors gathered in a semidarkened laboratory in Bologna, staring at the head of a slaughtered ox. They shifted uncomfortably in the unusually chilly room, rubbing their hands vigorously. Winter in Bologna could be cold, and this year was no exception. They shuffled in their chairs as they viewed the ox’s head, the dead stump resting in the middle of a surgical table. Earlier that day, Aldini had procured a voltaic pile, which he hoped to use on the animal.

  Aldini entered the room and stood by the table where the ox’s head lay. He didn’t feel the need to speak or to explain his doings, but with the flourishing gestures that were his stamp, he picked up an electrical arc, which sizzled loudly in his hands. Then he applied it to the ox’s head. Right away the eyes flew open and the animal’s ears began to twitch. He heard the crowd inhale sharply as the head, despite being decapitated, seemed alive, its “tongue . . . agitated . . . .” As Aldini later wrote, the ox moved “in the same manner as . . . the living animal when irritated and desirous of combating another of the same species.”

  Giovanni Aldini performing galvanism experiments on warm-blooded animals, detailed and printed in his book Essai théoretique et expérimental sur le galvanisme, published in Paris, 1804.

  Aldini knew his uncle had wanted his experiments to help find a cure for illnesses, particularly paralysis. While working at Sant’Orsola, Galvani had been keen to “subject an amputated arm or foot to his experiments,” and “when a metal arc was carried from a muscle to the nerves, vigorous contractions suddenly arose.” Often, Aldini had been employed as an assistant in his uncle’s laboratory, where he had been exposed to a treasure-trove of amputated limbs, dead frogs, and other small animals in various states of decomposition, as well as assorted chemicals.

  To continue his uncle’s work, Aldini needed to properly master the voltaic battery. At first, he had a tendency to turn up the switches and knobs to such a powerful level that he inadvertently caused the animals’ heads to convulse in a more
repugnant manner, or to explode altogether. Sometimes, unaware of what was happening, the eyeballs rolled back and forth or protruded completely out of the animal’s sockets—something he discovered when screams arose in his audience.

  In January 1802, Aldini secured the bodies of two criminals who had been executed that morning. In life the two had been “very young . . . and of a robust constitution,” traits Aldini always favored.

  Galvani’s experiment. From Giovanni Aldini’s text Essai théorique et expérimental sur le galvanisme, depicting two decapitated cadavers and his efforts to restore movements to them.

  The visitors who arrived at the laboratory that night were expecting an ox, a dog, a calf, maybe. They were taken aback when Aldini uncovered two tables: on the first rested the lower body of one of the cadavers, and on the second was the second cadaver’s separated head. Holding a zinc pile in his hands, Aldini neared the man’s head, whose ears he had dampened with salt water. Then he “formed an arc with two metallic wires, which proceeding from the two ears, were applied.” Those present moved uncomfortably in their chairs when, as he later wrote, he “observed strong contractions in all the muscles of the face, which were contorted in so irregular a manner that they exhibited the appearance of the most horrid grimaces. The action of the eyelids was exceedingly striking, though less sensible in the human head than in that of the ox.” Despite the grimaces, some looked closer, as the corpse seemed to drool a thin rivulet of saliva from its lips.

  To further prove the efficacy of the experiment, Aldini set the two criminals’ heads side by side on the table. The official communication between the two heads was formed when the arc was stretched from “the right ear of one head, and to the left ear of the other.” As he had anticipated, the two faces contorted as if alive, giving away such “horrid grimaces,” those in attendance were “actually frightened.”

  Professor Mondini, a local academic and practitioner of medicine who had been eager to see for himself the result of such operations, pressed Aldini to repeat the experiments on different cadavers. January 1802 seemed to have been a prolific month for the executioner, as several criminals had their lives ended by the axe. This gave Aldini a steady supply for his experiments.

  In front of a selected group of individuals, including well-known doctors and physicians, a very strong and muscular body was galvanized. “By applying the arc . . . ,” Aldini later reported, “the violence of the contractions was much increased. The trunk was thrown into strong convulsions, the shoulders were elevated in a sensible manner, and the hands were so agitated that they beat against the table which supported the body.”

  Aldini knew that a number of scientists wondered why he was not using his experiments to discover cures for the sicknesses of the living. But he rejected this criticism and stuck to the notion that he was “promoting the welfare of the human race, and may be of service to cases of apparent death.”

  On May 17, 1801, a young man named Luigi Lanzarini had been institutionalized at the hospital of Sant’Orsola for what doctors had termed “melancholy.” He was twenty-seven years old and a farm worker. Prior to his hospitalization, he had suffered from a prolonged bout of fever, which the doctors assumed had triggered his descent. Upon arriving at Sant’Orsola, Lanzarini began to complain of mistreatment and soon to display uneasiness around his doctors, so much so that his caretakers came to believe the melancholy had “degenerated into real stupidity.”

  Giovanni Aldini had always been intrigued by the notion of melancholy madness. He had come to believe the disease was due, first and foremost, to an imbalance in the brain, but also thought the responsibility could lie with accidents where the victims were hit over their heads, diseases of the body that traveled to the brain, or the bludgeoning of the victims. Such dire traumas to the skull and brain would often allow for “variations of the intellectual powers.” He was determined to try the galvanization process on those suffering from melancholia madness, those who had “little hope . . . of their being restored to society.” Lunatics, as they were called.

  Prior to starting the experiments, he had tried to galvanize himself in a “long series of painful and disagreeable experiments.” But even having had the experience himself did not stop him from trying galvanism on others. To Aldini, this was an extension of his uncle’s desires.

  Aldini conferred with Professor Gentilli and Professor Palazzi, both of whom were working at Sant’Orsola, and together they observed firsthand the tragic young Lanzarini. His melancholy had deepened, and the doctors were running out of options. Aldini suddenly realized he’d found the perfect subject: he was young; relatively healthy, aside from his current disease; and had only become a “lunatic” following a tangible ordeal, which was his fever. Aldini decided, with permission from Lanzarini’s doctors, to administer galvanism.

  During the first session, Aldini’s therapies were administered slowly, adjusting the voltaic battery as he went along. He saw no marked improvement. Lanzarini was questioned about his disease and where he believed it had been generated. But his state of mind had been so damaged that it did not allow for any clear answers. He merely stared at his doctors and Aldini, as well as the galvanization machine. His eyes were fixed and he slurred, which appeared to “indicate a great degree of stupidity and derangements.”

  As Aldini continued his ministrations, Lanzarini seemed to get better, his melancholy lessening. Aldini became convinced that his doings were able to “prove that Galvanism absolutely exercised an action on such a disease.” Lanzarini didn’t suffer from the process itself, and when doctors spoke to him days later, he was able to answer them—in a clear and concise voice—that he felt no adverse reaction to the voltaic arc Aldini was using. Over the following days, Lanzarini’s pain evaporated, and to everyone’s surprise, he even began to smile. He ate well and recovered enough that the doctors felt comfortable releasing him.

  But Aldini was not entirely done with Lanzarini and invited him to Aldini’s house. They ate and talked, and it was during one of these conversations that Lanzarini revealed that his father, Fabiano Lanzarini, had also been gripped by the same disease. He had been institutionalized at Sant’Orsola, where he had died on June 12, 1790. Aldini researched the information and learned it was true.

  Knowing about Lanzarini’s father didn’t seem to change Aldini’s beliefs. He did not make a connection between heredity and Lanzarini’s current state of mind, but rather continued to believe that the environment had played a larger role in Lanzarini’s disease, going so far as to suggest Lanzarini’s moving away. “I advised Lanzarini to spend the rest of his life at a distance from his native country,” Aldini wrote, “lest, having continually before his eyes these objects which had occasioned his disease, it might occur with double violence.”

  Lanzarini heeded his advice, but only for a short while. Suffering from “nostalgia,” he later returned to his hometown, where, Aldini learned, he was doing well.

  Lanzarini’s case proved to be one of the few positive ones. The galvanization process seemed worthless for others suffering from mental disorders. Aldini even discovered that the process could be “dangerous” in patients where the disease was even more severe.

  Though Aldini tried to work with the living, he continued most of his experiments on the dead. And performing galvanizations on dead corpses, he finally came to believe that “the heart, which, according to Haller’s principle, is the first muscle that receives life and the last to lose it, in comparison of the other muscles, can with difficulty be made to feel the influence of the galvanic action.”

  Though he had no tangible proof it could be done, his new goal was to restart the heart and bring a dead corpse back to life. But the cadavers he got in Bologna were decapitated and long emptied of the vital force. He wanted to experiment on corpses that were still intact and were nearly warm to the touch. He needed to go someplace that offered such opportunities. England, with its progressive thinking, was the logical choice.

  Chapter 3r />
  MAKING MONSTERS

  To Examine the cause of life,

  we must have recourse to Death.

  MARY SHELLEY,

  FRANKENSTEIN; OR, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS

  Giovanni Aldini arrived in London in the winter of 1802 with his uncle’s galvanic instruments and a dash of the swagger that made him so controversial in Bologna. His goal was to find a perfect dead body that he could use to perform his galvanic experiments and prove that his theories, and those of his uncle, were correct.

  The city that greeted him was by then growing rapidly. By the early 1800s, nearly one million people had poured into the metropolis from all corners of Britain and abroad, allowing for an amalgamation of cultures and social classes to take place. In the West End the ostentatiously rich made use of every technological advance available, every medical discovery money could buy them, and every frivolous fad they believed would prolong their lives, or at least rejuvenate their sagging bodies.

  Meanwhile, the poor barely survived in the ramshackle alleys of the old city. Those who had left the country and come to the city to better their lives instead found filth, disease, and destitution. The streets around them reeked with every possible shade of humanity hawking their goods—shoes, pots and pans, roasted chestnuts—all for a few measly coins. The fetid, ripe smells that rose from the carts they dragged and the stink wafting from the workhouses and spewing out from the hundreds of chimneys mingled with the horse dung strewn across the cobblestone streets, giving everything a foul, dingy quality.

  The city was also at the cusp of a medical revolution. The main hospitals were teeming with doctors and surgeons experimenting on the living as well as the dead, busy trying to find new ways to cure the sick. And in discreet and out-of-the-way corners of the city, private laboratories had sprung up where doctors undertook experiments that hospital officials found too gruesome to perform in a respectable environment. During this time of medical innovation, there were charlatans, or so-called visionaries, who claimed their intentions and advances could save humanity. Unfortunately for Aldini, one of London’s most scandalous quacks had experimented with electricity not long before he came to England.