British and French doctors tried transfusing sheep’s blood into humans, hoping that the life force of a docile creature might tame mad passions. In France, Dr. Jean Denis tried it on a wife-beater, with at first good results.<\/p>\n
Over in England, on November 25, 1667, a daft impoverished clergyman’s helper, named Arthur Coga, was paid twenty shillings to undergo the experiment, receiving up to twelve ounces of blood from the woolly four-footed beast. “Some think it may have a good effect upon him as a frantic man by cooling his blood,” wrote famed diarist, Samuel Pepys. A large crowd of experts gathered at the Royal Society to observe.<\/p>\n
Pepys was pleased to note that the following week, the man addressed the Royal Society in Latin. “He is a little cracked in his head, though he speaks very reasonably,” added Pepys a bit cryptically.<\/p>\n
Dr. Richard Lower, a “dexterous anatomist” who presided over the test, stated that he “decided to repeat the treatment several times in an effort to improve [the man’s] mental condition.” Coga, however, either refused or more likely disappeared. Opined Dr. Lower: “i have no doubt that his discovery… will be employed with great profit for the human race, if it is practiced with due consideration and care.”<\/p>\n
Over in France, in January of the following year, Dr. Denis performed his third sheep transfusion on the wife-beater, who’d had a relapse to his brutal ways. The man died and the doctor was accused of murder. Sheep transfusion fell out of vogue for a couple hundred years.<\/p>\n
Culled from:\u00a0An Underground Education<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Culled from:\u00a0Beyond the Dark Veil: Post Mortem & Mourning Photography from The Thanatos Archive<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/0e12d2e2-ac2e-2cd8-2c3a-3f1fb4bd73a6.jpeg\")
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\nDr. Denys at work.<\/em><\/p>\nPost-Mortem Photo Du Jour!<\/h3>\n
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\nFather’s Embrace<\/em>
\nCirca 1850
\nSixth-plate daguerreotype, 3.75″ x 3.25″
\nA man holds his deceased daughter, who has been wrapped in a blanket and posed as if asleep in his arms.<\/p>\n