The Resurrectionist The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black by E. B. Hudspeth

Author:E. B. Hudspeth
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781594746246
Publisher: Quirk Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

1888–1908

THE HUMAN RENAISSANCE

My lab is more than a cold table fashioned of wood

and metal; it is a heartbeat, a vessel, my home and temple.

—Spencer Black

In spite of this family tragedy, Black had reaffirmed his conviction in his work. His journal reveals his feelings after parting company with Bernard, Samuel, and his hometown of Philadelphia.

April 30, 1888

We are now traveling to Chicago; Elise is resting quietly. My brother and I are at odds; our friendship, I fear, is irreconcilable. I had no opportunity to explain myself as well as perhaps he would have required to merit compassion. There was no opportunity, but how could I have? Would I discuss the minutia of the scientific details pertaining to the complex structures of all that governs life and the obedience required to deviate from it? Creating a new specimen? It would require a millennium to explain and write it down. But all the while the creature lived––is that not enough?

I cannot be still, I cannot rest or sleep. I won’t escape what I set out to do. My work is more than a curiosity now. I knew nothing when I was young; I was far from death, I couldn’t taste it on my teeth as I do now. I didn’t give enough thought to what I was doing as a doctor or scientist. I am careful now; I have left whence I came.

We have finally arrived. It is now morning. I am delighted at the stillness of the tall grass in the fields and the quiet of the horses, stopped, steaming with heat and unable to go anymore. Elise is still asleep; I won’t wake her, she had just begun to rest. My beloved and eternally precious Elise––I could write that a thousand times and not tire; how it pains me that of all the flowers to bloom this Spring, she is the one I will not see.

Upon arriving in Chicago, Black began work on a new show, the Human Renaissance, that would be a showcase for his living evidence. In 1890, after two years of development, Black unveiled the show in Boston. Promotional handbills advertised “The Winged Woman” or “Angel Child,” “The Snake Maiden,” “The Fire Demon,” and “Darwin’s Beagle,” a canine with functional wings grafted onto its back.

Some speculated that the creatures were accidental mutations, optical illusions, or elaborately costumed animals. Others (correctly) believed they were surgically assembled hybrids. But Dr. Black himself claimed they were newly discovered life forms. From the fall 1891 issue of Chicago Journal of Science:

A man, scientist or not, who can manipulate nature through vivisection or any means to this end does not practice science but instead knows it––and possesses a power that no man should wield, for this work no man should have wrought.

—William J. Getty, M.D., F.R.S.C.

(Professor of Surgery in the Anatomy Department of the

University of Medical Science, New York)

Some of the performers in the Human Renaissance were Dr. Black’s patients from Ward C; others were patients he’d met during his travels with the American Carnival.

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