This description recalls an experiment by Giovanni Aldini, a Professor of Experimental Philosophy at the University of Bologna, Italy. He was also Luigi Galvani’s nephew and a strong proponent of the latter’s work. In early 1803, Aldini conducted an electrical experiment on the corpse of Thomas Foster at Newgate Prison in London. A voltaic pile sent electric currents through the dead man’s body, causing it to contract and contort and one eye to open. Such experiments were well known to the Shelleys, who attended physiological lectures in London between 1802 and 1816.