Fiction and Physicians by Stephen McWilliams

Author:Stephen McWilliams [Stephen McWilliams]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781905785382
Publisher: The Liffey Press
Published: 2012-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Mister Frankenstein

If Drs Slop and Bovary were written into their respective stories only to provide comic relief, there are several other fictional physicians whose characteristics are central to the themes of novels. Think of the clichéd mad scientist who finds himself in hot water when his ambitious experiments go wrong. Alas, to begin this line of enquiry, it is necessary to stray marginally beyond our brief. One aim of Fiction & Physicians is to elicit the occasional enthusiastic response: “Wow, I never realised he (or she) was a doctor!” But with Victor Frankenstein, the reverse is the case; many don’t seem to realise he is not.

At least this is the case if we choose to be rigid about how we classify a doctor. Over the past two centuries, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (1818) has been adapted time and time again for stage, film and television. The first stage adaptation was Richard Brinsley Peake’s Presumption; or the Fate of Frankenstein (1823), while classic film adaptations include James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931), his sequel The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and Kenneth Branagh’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994). Picture the monster and we typically see Boris Karloff with outstretched arms, a flat head and a bolt through his neck. Indeed, the legend has been twisted and reinvented so many times that many people still erroneously consider Frankenstein to be the name of the monster and not its creator. More importantly, several adaptations incorrectly refer to Frankenstein as a medical doctor – or even a baron.

According to the original text, he is neither. Having developed an interest in academia during childhood, he sets off for the University of Ingolstadt to study natural philosophy with a particular interest in chemistry. Yet his motivation is not dissimilar to that of a medical student in that he has a yearning for knowledge on how to preserve life. For example, he remarks enthusiastically, “Wealth was an inferior object, but what glory would attend the discovery if I could banish disease from the human frame and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death!”

Frankenstein’s choice of subjects is also medical. He asserts that, “One of the phenomena which had peculiarly attracted my attention was the structure of the human frame, and, indeed, deed, any animal endued with life.” He goes on to reveal that he “determined thenceforth to apply myself more particularly to those branches of natural philosophy which relate to physiology”. He furthermore becomes “acquainted with the science of anatomy” sufficiently to “prepare a frame for the reception of (animation), with all its intricacies of fibres, muscles, and veins … a work of inconceivable difficulty and labour”. Finally, he learns to “observe the natural decay and corruption of the human body”, a science otherwise known to us as pathology.

Frankenstein’s work ethic might have suited a career in medicine, although his own health ultimately suffers as a result of his endeavours. He describes himself as “one doomed by slavery to toil in the mines, or any other unwholesome trade than an artist occupied by his favourite employment”.

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