Raising the Dead

Roger Lewis reviews Raising the Dead by Andy Dougan

In 1818, the year Mary Shelley's Victor Frankenstein was in the lab throwing switches and checking gauges amid the lightning flashes, similar actual experiments were underway in a Scottish university. 

Professor Andrew Ure connected a tube to a battery and shoved it up a corpse's nose. "The tongue moved out to his lips," it was reported. "His eyes opened widely. His head, arms and legs moved." 

Apparently the body stood up unaided, laborious breathing commenced, and the assembled students screamed out in horror, as well they might. 

Professor Ure had to stab the creature in the jugular vein to calm it down.

Yes, THAT Professor Ure.