7 Terrifying Monsters That Are (Sort Of) Definitely Real
1. Frankensteins Monster
For some reason, I always had a big problem getting immersed in any Frankenstein fiction. The whole concept just seemed a little farfetched but, oh dear, I was so wrong.
Controversial stories connect Johann Konrad Dippel, a 17th century German aristocrat who lived at the real Castle Frankenstein, with Mary Shelleys gothic novel. It is speculated that she heard stories about the gruesome experiments that Dippel (an alchemist and physician) allegedly carried out in his laboratory. While its fairly well established that he tried to create an elixir of life by mixing together various dead animals bodily fluids and tissues (including blood and bones), there are also unconfirmed stories that he attempted things much more sinister.
Dipple believed it was theoretically possible to transfer the soul of one living thing into the body of another, allowing it to be reanimated. He attempted this with various experiments involving corpses and a series of pipes and funnels used to channel the souls. Of course, Dippel was not successful, meaning he doesnt quite deliver as an example of a real life Dr Frankenstein.
So, enter a pair of Soviet doctors called Sergei Brukhonenko and Boris Levinskovsky. A 1940 film called Experiments in the Revival of Organisms documents a horrifying set of tests on dogs. At first, the video depicts a few tubes connected to an isolated heart and lungs, which seem to function as normal several hours after being removed from the body. The heart beats, the lungs inflate, and blood within the system actually becomes oxygenated as it passes through. What follows, however, is much more disturbing.
The scientists then demonstrate that a dogs head can be completely removed from the body and connected to such a rig in order to keep it alive. The severed head lies alone on a plate very much alive and reacts to sounds, lights and being prodded in the eye. For their final trick however, they go full Frankenstein. A dog is drained of its blood until it stops respiring and its heart stops beating. Doctors wait a full ten minutes while the dog lies dead on the table, before connecting up the lifeless corpse to their contraption. Its blood is pumped back into the body and, after ten minutes on the Other Side, the pup is completely reanimated. Following 12 days of feeling decidedly weak, the dog is up and about as though nothing ever happened.
You can watch the whole horrifying thing on video here.
And, by the way, if anyone is interested, Im trying to contact Brukhonenko and Levinskovskys living descendants in the hope of getting my hands on such a machine for hangover purposes.
Want to write for WhatCulture Science? Click here to find out how you could get paid to write about what you love.
Hey, you. Yeah, you. You want some more science? Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for your next fix.