Other Activities
In addition to the Lunar Society, Erasmus Darwin belonged to the influential Derby Philosophical Society, as did his brother-in-law Samuel Fox (see family tree below). He experimented with the use of air and gases to alleviate infections and cancers in patients. A Pneumatic Institution was established at Clifton in 1799 for clinically testing these ideas. He conducted research into the formation of clouds, on which he published in 1788. He also inspired Robert Weldon's Somerset Coal Canal caisson lock.
Darwin's experiments in galvanism were an important source of inspiration for Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein.
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Famous quotes containing the word activities:
“...I have never known a “movement” in the theater that did not work direct and serious harm. Indeed, I have sometimes felt that the very people associated with various “uplifting” activities in the theater are people who are astoundingly lacking in idealism.”
—Minnie Maddern Fiske (1865–1932)
“That is the real pivot of all bourgeois consciousness in all countries: fear and hate of the instinctive, intuitional, procreative body in man or woman. But of course this fear and hate had to take on a righteous appearance, so it became moral, said that the instincts, intuitions and all the activities of the procreative body were evil, and promised a reward for their suppression. That is the great clue to bourgeois psychology: the reward business.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)