Electrified Sheep
-
-
5.0 • 2 Ratings
-
-
- £6.99
Publisher Description
Benjamin Franklin was a pioneering scientist, leader of the Enlightenment and founding father of the USA. But perhaps less well known is that he was also the first person to use artificial respiration to revive an electric shock victim. Odder still, it was actually mouth-to-beak resuscitation on a hen that he himself had shocked.
Welcome to some of the most weird and wonderful experiments ever conducted in the name of science. Packed full of eccentric characters, irrational obsessions and extreme experiments, Electrified Sheep is the follow-up to the bestselling Elephants on Acid. Watch as scientists attempt to blow up the moon, wince at the doctor who performs a self-appendectomy - and catch the faint whiff of singed wool from an electrified sheep.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Boese follows Elephants on Acid with another foray into the annals of scientific experiments whose major contribution to society may well be their highly entertaining recounting. Many of the experiments, by a group he calls "scientists gone wild," revolve around animals, and readers sympathetic to PETA will be repulsed rather than amused. The 1903 execution by electrocution of Topsy, a rogue circus elephant, is funny, but blackly so. (Thomas Edison volunteered his electrification services.) There are chapters on experiments to test the effects of exposure to nuclear explosions, including a proposal to use an atom bomb to launch a space ship; on psychiatric experimenters, including two researchers who in 1938 sought to discover what Bryn Mawr co-eds talked about at night by hiding under their beds; and a chapter on the general lunacy of scientists who use themselves as guinea pigs, including a doctor who tried to remove his own appendix. While readers will often find Boese laugh out loud funny, they will also be left with a prickly feeling that all is not well on the frontiers, and certainly the fringes, of science.
Customer Reviews
Electrifying!
A great book that I picked up at the airport, and which I got into immediately! This book looks at the strange, fascinating and humorous parts which science has driven people to do, such as the pig in bikini bay. I really enjoyed it and I highly recommend it!
Rob