Two mad scientists: one transplanted goat glands into prisoners, the other may have eaten a king's heart. These men discarded the rules of society in pursuit of their own insane goals.
In this Greatest Hits episode of History's Greatest Idiots, we revisit two of the strangest careers in the history of science.
Dr Leo Stanley spent nearly four decades as chief surgeon at San Quentin State Prison, where he performed more than 10,000 gland implants using material from goats, rams, boars, deer and death row inmates, convinced he could cure crime and reverse ageing. He was also an enthusiastic champion of eugenics sooo...ooof.
Then we have William Buckland, the Oxford geologist who named the first dinosaur, Megalosaurus, tried to eat his way through the animal kingdom (reportedly ranking mole and bluebottle as the worst things he ever tasted), had a coprolite (fossilised dung) dining table, and is said to have eaten the preserved heart of Louis XIV at a dinner party.
Two baffling men who's lives exist as proof that being recognised as a pioneer and completely unhinged/unethical can sometimes be true of the same person.
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