One of the most popular novels of all time is Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. We all know the basic theme of the novel and that was about resurrecting the dead. Shelley was only 18 years old when she wrote Frankenstein. It was first published in 1831, but some say 1818. Actually the monster that Dr. Frankenstein brought to life was a composite. It was composed of parts of several people. Actually what some people fail to realize and this may depend on what version of the book that they have read, is that the story of the Frankenstein monster is a tragedy for all those involved, including the monster himself. It is a morality tale that show us that tampering with things that are in the realm of creation can only lead to unhappiness and disaster for those that attempt it, at least that is what Shelley was trying to tell us. The end result of building the monster and then giving him life was that the monster took everything away from Dr. Frankenstein that he loved, because he had nothing himself, then he headed out into the icy wastelands of the poles with the doctor following him with blood lust in his heart. The story, while being more or less a horror story also speaks to the technology of the day.

Electricity was still something wondrous and had not yet appeared in any homes. Storage batteries were being used in many experiments. There were also early electrical generators, but they did not operate on the same principles as the generators of today. We use magnets in our generators today, but the connection between magnets and electrical generation had not been discovered yet in the early generators. So how did these early generators work if they had no magnets in them? They were able to generate static electricity. That is the same type of electricity that is generated when a person walks across a new rug and then touches a metal part. When you do this, you will see a spark jump from your finger to the metal. Your body has become an electrostatic generator. The generators used moving electrically charged belts, plates and disks that were able to carry a charge to an electrode. This all changed somewhere around 1831 and 1832, when Michael Faraday discovered the principle that is called Faraday's law. This law showed the relationship between magnetism and electricity and Faraday built a small generator using this principle. It had a copper rotating disc that was between two magnets. It was not very efficient and had all sorts of problems due to it's design. In the same year the first dynamo appeared. These devices were capable of putting out current that could power machines.

Dynamos are no longer used today, but as you can see, electricity was on the minds of many people back in Shelley's time. Some things that went on in those days would offend the senses of our more civilized time. It was found that if you connected electrical wires to things like a severed chicken leg, you could make the muscle expand and contract. Dead frogs were made to jump and other bizarre uses were found for dead animals. Electricity had fallen into the hands of the carnival barkers and circus owners and the result would make us sick today. Corpses were carted around the country. They had electrodes attached to them and they were made to sit up, open their mouths and do various other things. It was gross to say the least, but people paid to see this. What was in their minds, why would anyone want to witness such a spectacle? I think that one of the reasons was that they thought that somehow, electricity was ultimately going to be used to restore life. Shelley's book was not just a fantasy to some people, I believe that they actually thought that science was about to fulfill the dream of bringing back the dead. Electricity had led them all to believe this, after all, to the uneducated person of that day, the power of electricity seemed wondrous and seeing dead bodies move again seemed like a miracle to them, of course they didn't realize that this was just the contracting and releasing of muscles.

I guess if we were alive in those days we would have thought that we were on the verge of cutting edge technology and I guess in a way they were, but it didn't have the use that they thought it would. Today we also have programs for bringing back the dead, although none of them have worked yet and it is doubtful that they ever will. We call it cryogenics. People are frozen at the moment of death with the object being to revive them when a cure is found for the illness that they died from. Sometimes only their heads are frozen. This is all very weird indeed and I believe it is a total waste of time for all involved, except the companies that are making hundreds of thousands of dollars doing this. Sometimes one thing leads to another and cryogenics has been found useful in hardening metals. When statin drugs are created they must undergo temperatures of -100 C while being processed. Every time we watch the space shuttle blast off, we are watching a vehicle that is using cryogenic hydrogen as a fuel. That is why you will sometimes see vapor coming from the shuttle while it is sitting on the ground getting ready to launch. Research is ongoing to produce cryogenic fuel for planes. Liquidified natural gas may be the aviation fuel of the future and cryogenics is necessary to make it.

Some scientists are looking to find ways not to only restore life, but to conquer death. Others have stated that the earth would not be able to support an ever increasing population where death was not a factor. One scientist has answered this claim with an argument that I have never heard before. He states that the population of the world is flatlining. According to him it is starting to increase at diminished rates and is heading for a median number that it may remain at, more or less. Some scientists think that certain technologies that are either available or becoming available will be the instruments that give us immortal life. They state that death is not certain for every living thing and they cite lobsters, turtles and banana trees as example. They claim that if it was not for disease and predators, these things would never die. Wow that is a new one on me. They go on to say that aging is a disease like cancer and that there are new techniques coming out that could cure it. The global death rate is about 150,000 per day. The US death rate is about 6,500 per day. Will we ever solve the problem of aging and death? I don't think I will ever see it in my lifetime, but I do believe that life will be greatly extended, if not made immortal. We have already found what we believe is the cause for aging, the fraying at the ends of the chromosomes. If we are right, finding that out was half the battle. The next question is how do we stop this from happening and can we restore them on older people? Using mechanical aids such as tiny robots the size of blood cells or smaller, we might be able to self repair ourselves when disease strikes.

We are moving to a new type of society. People only dreamed about conquering death in the time of Shelley, we live in a time where in the near future we may be able to actually do it. I leave the decision of whether or not this will be a good thing up to the ethicalities' point of view: In an ideal world everyone would get a chance at an immortal. life, but in this one maybe only the rich will get a crack at it. Who is to say that some governments may not allow certain people to get the treatment, because for some unknown reason they are on an undesirable list or some such think, even if it is by error.

I would like to finish this article by telling you about an invention by a Dr. De Sanctis. It was called the Reanimation Chair. It was invented somewhere before 1820. The chair had three main parts. One was a bellows for ventilation, the second was a metal tube that was inserted into the throat of the corpse and the third was a voltaic pile (battery) that was attached to the tube. The electrode would also be used to stimulate the heart, diaphragm and stomach. The voltage used was somewhere between 20 and 100 volts. I guess I don't have to tell you that the chair was a flop and became a scientific curiosity. Can you imagine if this thing had worked. We would have had all sorts of mindless zombies walking around, since the brain dies quickly. I guess it is lucky that people in the 19th century never figured out how to raise the dead.