Romantic theories of life; E. Darwin, J. Priestley, and H. Davy; medical science

Erasmus Darwin

•Born: 12 December 1731

•Died: 18 April 1802

•Natural Philosopher

•Physiologist

•Abolitionist

•Wrote numerous botanical works

•His most important work was Zoonomia, where he foreshadowed the modern theory of evoltion.

•Charles Darwin was his grandson.

Woo'd with long care, CURCUMA cold and shy
Meets her fond husband with averted eye:
Four beardless youths the obdurate beauty move
With soft attentions of Platonic love.

–From The Loves of Plants (Wordsworth liked it, Coleridge hated it)

Joseph Priestly

Born: 13 March 1733

Died: 6 February 1804

Clergyman (founded Unitarianism)

Theologian ( tried to fuse science and theology)

Natural Philosopher

Chemist

Discovered oxygen (and created soda water)

Lo! Priestley there, patriot, and saint, and sage,
Him, full of years, from his loved native land
Statesmen blood-stained and priests idolatrous
By dark lies maddening the blind multitude
Drove with vain hate ....

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge

From Religious Musings

Humphrey Davy

•Born: 17 December 1778

•Died: 29 May 1829

•Chemist and inventor

•Discovered chlorine and iodine

•Friends with Robert Southey and Samuel Taylor Coleridge

•Helped found The Royal Institution and Geological Society

•Decided that inhaling carbon monoxide would be fun. (it was that kind of time)

Davy the “mad scientist”

“This boy Humphry is incorrigible. He will blow us all.”

"Not in the ideal dreams of wild desire

Have I beheld a rapture-wakening form:

My bosom burns with no unhallow'd fire,

Yet is my cheek with rosy blushes warm;

Yet are my eyes with sparkling lustre fill'd;

Yet is my mouth replete with murmuring sound;

Yet are my limbs with inward transport fill'd;

And clad with new-born mightiness around.”

-Sir Humphry Davy

(writing of his experiences with nitrous oxide)

What does it all mean? 

Everybody's a mad scientist, and life is their lab. We're all trying to experiment to find a way to live, to solve problems, to fend off madness and chaos.

-David Cronenberg

Science in the 18th and 19th century

1712- steam engine

1724- mercury

1745- electric capacitor

1752- lightning rod

1792- gas lightening

1797- smallpox vaccination

1798- the battery

You seek for knowledge and wisdom as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been.

-Mary Shelley

It was a time of Monstrous Discovery!

Medical schools regularly had to purchase corpses from grave robbers.

Experiments were conducted that would today be considered madness.

 many still believed in the theory of the “four humors”

First serious study of human anatomy

This was a period of discovery.  The boundaries and ethics of science had yet to be “written.”