The Galvanisation of Matthew Clydesdale
On the 1st of September, 1818, Matthew Clydesdale, a weaver from the Airdrie area, was brought into Glasgow under arrest, charged with murdering a 70 year old man in a drunken rage. On the 3rd of October, Clydesdale was brought to trial, found guilty, and sentenced to be hung and anatomised - that is, after execution his body was to be handed over to the anatomists for their use.
This, however, was not to be a typical grisly chop-em-up affair, for one of the major scientific interests at the time was ‘galvanisation’: the animation of dead bodies by means of electric currents. (It was experiments in this area, such as the one in 1803 in London, on human subjects, which partly inspired Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein, published March 1818).
Both Jeffray and Ure were quite deliberately intent on the restoration of life.
Appropriate dissections exposed the various sites selected for electrical stimulation. No bleeding occurred, proving that Clydesdale was dead. Application of the connecting rods to the heel and the spinal cord at the level of the atlas caused such violent extension of the bent knee “as nearly to overturn one of the assistants”.
Next, in an attempt to restore breathing, the rods were connected to the left phrenic nerve and the diaphragm, “The success of it was truly wonderful. Full, nay, laborious breathing instantly commenced. The chest heaved and fell; the belly was protruded and again collapsed, with the retiring and collapsing diaphragm”. The process continued so long as intermittent electrical stimulation was applied.
Perhaps the most dramatic events occurred when the current was applied to the supraorbital nerve and heel. By varying the voltage, “most horrible grimaces were exhibited .... Rage, horror, despair, anguish and ghastly smiles united their hideous expression in the murderer's face, surpassing far the wildest representations of a Fuseli or a Kean. — At this period several spectators were forced to leave the apartment from terror or sickness, and one gentleman fainted.”
