Dr. Victor Frankenstein's Failure

On achieving more by focusing on what is within our power.

As Mary Shelley described the Italian-Swiss scientist, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, he was born into one of the most distinguished families of Genoa and got the best scientific education at the University of Ingolstadt in Bavaria. Gifted in mathematics and chemistry, he succeeded in creating a human-like creature by assembling dead tissue and reanimating it. The trouble was, upon completing his task, Dr. Frankenstein perceived his own creature to be a crude and repulsive imitation of a human being, and not a real one.

At this moment in the story, the brilliant and arrogant scientist becomes all too human by dodging responsibility for his action. When people around him are murdered, he knows his creature is the culprit, but instead of revealing the truth to his community, he tries to conceal it. The only time Dr. Frankenstein shows any courage is when he denies the creature’s demand for a female companion. Only then does he realize there is no way he can continue playing God.

In recent years I’ve often thought about Shelley’s fascinating novel, which was apparently inspired by her relationship with her husband, the English poet and amateur scientist, Percy Shelley. She was reflecting on how rapid advances in science altered our understanding of ourselves and our limitations. The intellectual and spiritual problem she identified in 1818 is now about 10,000 times worse, because modern technology has grossly distorted our understanding of the human condition. Consider the following immutable facts that so many of us now struggle to recognize and accept.

1) We are born either male or female. No amount of surgery of hormones can change this essential fact.

2) We grow old and we lose our youthful appearance. No amount of surgery or other procedures can change this.

3) Our health is impaired by the excess consumption of calories, alcohol, and drugs. We cannot consume whatever we damn well please and expect to remain fit. Being fat is NOT beautiful or healthy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it quickly became apparent that the greatest co-factors for serious disease were morbid obesity and diabetes—i.e., common American conditions that are curable by changes of habit and lifestyle, not by expensive patented medications.

4) Medical science cannot create a pill or shot to relieve every ailment. We have to assume responsibility for our health and cultivate good habits for taking care of ourselves.

5) Medical science cannot create a superior substitute for the human immune system. Conventional vaccines work by inducing natural immunity, not by replacing it. Anyone acquainted with basic immunology understood this before SARS-CoV-2 arrived. The preposterous notion that the vaccinated possessed better immunity than the Covid recovered was one of the biggest lies of the pandemic.

6) Medical science can only manipulate nature to a certain point. Certain natural phenomena are not amendable to certain bio-technological interventions. For example, everyone who has seriously studied respiratory viral infections knows that these infections (which begin in the upper respiratory tract) are NOT preventable by vaccines that induce antibodies in the blood. The reason for this is obvious: The virus does NOT interact directly with the blood until it penetrates the lungs’ alveoli, where gas is exchanged. By then the host is already infected and likely transmitting the virus. A far more promising approach is to develop interventions that work in the mucosa of the upper respiratory tract, where the virus replicates.

7) We cannot receive any satisfying benefit without earning it. If we receive benefits without working for them, we take them for granted and become petulant when we don’t receive more.

While all of the above may seem lamentable, great strength can be derived from recognizing and accepting the limits imposed on us instead of chafing against them.

In our conversations about infectious disease, Dr. McCullough has often emphasized that the greatest advances in medicine were achieved through the construction of clean water and sanitation facilities and through personal hygiene. Medical technologies such as vaccines achieved a tiny fraction of the benefit conferred by clean water, public and household sanitation, and hand washing.

The same applies to chronic physical and mental health conditions. For most of us, more good health could be achieved by knocking off the booze, slimming down, and getting a good night’s sleep than all of the prescription drugs in the world. For obvious reasons, the pharmaceutical industry doesn’t want you to think very carefully about that.

The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung once famously remarked: “Modern people don’t see God because they don’t look low enough.” For most of us, the elements for building a satisfying, tranquil, and even joyful life are right in front of us. By focusing more on what we do have and working with it, it’s likely we could all vastly improve our human condition for ourselves and for our communities.