Title: The Vivisector Vivisected
Author: Ronald Ross
Date of First Publication: 1881
Place of Publication: Unpublished; Peter Haining, Editor of The Frankenstein Omnibus, publishes the work with the date 1881
Bibliographic Reference: isfdb
Type: Short Story
Keywords: ANDROID; RACE and POLITICS; FRANKENSTEIN MONSTER; BYRONIC HERO
Critical Summary: The plot to “Vivisector” involves the narrator’s reading of Dr. William Silcutt’s manuscript, which was given to the narrator during a brief tour of Silcutt’s hospital, with the stipulation that the narrator not release the information contained until after both their deaths. The manuscript relates Silcutt’s studies under Dr. Patrick Macullian at the Snogginsville Infirmary. In an isolated tower of the facilities, Silcutt and Dr. Macullian perform vivisections and experiments on their operating table which the pair call the “altar of science.” Dr. Macullian creates a two-pump mechanism, a human-operated heart, to test his theory that a recently deceased and exsanguinated corpse, provided with fresh blood, may return to life. The pair plan to try the device on a patient. After some months of waiting, a perfect patient arrives and dies of blood loss from a single wound on the forehead. The pair of doctors prepare the body and butcher a donkey for its blood in the use of the mechanism. After several minutes of pumping the mechanism, the corpse returns to life.
The reanimated man reveals he was a physician and vivisector in his native Ireland before emigrating to America. The man becomes alarmed, remembering that he drank heavily after being wounded and died drunk. The patient surmises he is in Hell and his eternal contrapasso is to be the vivisector vivisected. Rather than contradict the speculation, Dr. Macullian continues the charade, describing future punishment for the patient. While Dr. Silcutt feeds the fire that is keeping the blood at the proper temperatures, the patient passes out due to lack of blood circulation. Regaining consciousness, the patient learns through the doctors’ shouting that Dr. Macullian is his twin brother. The reanimated Josephus relates the twins’ youth. Both competed for the love of Lucy Hagan. However, when Lucy refused Patrick’s proposal for marriage, Patrick murdered her and fled to America. In his new nation, Patrick learned Josephus murdered their father.
The pumping doctors realize that the water pipes keeping Josephus’s blood at the proper temperature have broken and the temperature is slowly rising. They must maintain the blood’s temperature or it will coagulate and quit circulating. The pair, tired from the hour-long manual work, cannot stop pumping for more than 2 minutes or Josephus will die. The tower is isolated so they cannot go for aid and return in time. Neither can they call for help as no person would hear their cries in the storm. Josephus’s blood slowly increases in temperature. He cries that the pain is training for hell and promises to vivisect Patrick after death. Near the point where Josephus’s blood will coagulate, Patrick passes out. Josephus gasps and falls back. The storm awakens the flame which blows into Silcutt’s face and causes him to pass out. Silcutt awakes the next morning to Josephus’s corpse and Patrick in a permanent state of madness.
“Vivisector” relates to Frankenstein in the obvious reanimation of a corpse through scientific experimentation but also, through the characterization of the Irish Patrick and Josephus, the fear of other (lower) races and fear of the criminal element brought to greater light later with Whale’s Frankenstein. Ross uses Patrick to question the motives of those who test the boundaries of life and death. The experiment proves completely impractical as life can be nothing but momentarily returned to the corpse. As Josephus cries of eternal torment, he suffers accidental torture at his brother’s hands, the scene recalls the experimental vivisections Josephus performed and the human and animal experiments being conducted in Medicine at the time. However, the ending sarcastic lines about the antivivisectionist movement reverse the horror of vivisection Ross writes into the story.
Administrative Notes: Gareth O’Neal, CSUF; Edited by Adriana Lora and Samuel Ortiz, CSUF