Elephants on Acid: and Other Bizarre Experiments by Alex Boese

Author: Alex Boese 

Title: Elephants on Acid: and Other Bizarre Experiments

Publisher: Pan

Published: 2009

Pages: 304

Genre: Science / Humour

      Have you ever wondered if a severed head retains consciousness long enough to see what happened to it? Or whether your dog would run to fetch help if you fell down a disused mineshaft? And what would happen if you were to give an elephant the largest ever single dose of LSD? The chances are that someone somewhere has conducted a scientific experiment to find out...

     We choose to read books for many reasons. Sometimes to be thrilled, sometimes to be educated, or maybe just to enjoy the ride. Every now and again I choose to read something away from my usual field of vision. To break the cycle, this usually comes in the form of something a little light hearted and fun. This time my fingers happened across a copy of Elephants on Acid: and Other Bizarre Experiments. I bought this quite some time ago for this very reason. Then as ever, it got chucked on the pile awaiting its time in the spotlight. And what better time than now to peek behind the curtains of medical science and ask the question? Just because you can does that always mean you should.

     Boese has clearly spent a great deal of time combing the back annals of since weekly or research papers that didn't quite stand up to the test of time. To bring us a collection of some of the most bizarre experiments to have been conducted. It is worth pointing out at this point that he chose to omit any experiment conducted by the Nazi government. As he points out the people found within the pages of this book stayed within the confines of what we might deem acceptable medical practice. Which is not to say that some of the topics discussed here will still not shock you. I can't help but feel that animals have suffered greatly at the hand of the scientific community in an attempt to prove certain theories correct.  Personally, there are still parts that are hard to read. but I don't feel this was the aim of him writing the book. What he hoped for was a book that was going to make you laugh and bring you a small bit of an education on just what those people in lab coats have been up to whilst the world has been looking the other way. Most of the time at least. 

     Each of the topics brought to light here is grouped within chapters on a certain theme. From bringing back the dead to the sex habits of you and me he has tried to cover a great deal of ground. And whilst no more than a few pages is devoted to any one experiment he doses at least give us further reading should you so wish to delve into any topic a bit deeper. I can see he has done his best to bring a lighter and more humorous approach to the subject and at times I did let out a laugh and more than once there might have been a bit of head-scratching. And whilst I do have to question the thinking behind a great many of these so-called scientific endeavors I can see how a few have led on to bigger answers. It also goes a long way to dispelling some of those urban legends that have been floating around. Let's just say Lassie doesn't always come across as the great hero of befallen owners the world over. But anyway the point is here that this is one of those books you can pick up and put down as you wish. You may even give it to a friend when you done and tell them it should give them a bit of a chuckle.

     I think for me this book did what I need it to do. It filled my time with a mixture of humerus intervals and some straight-up terrifying experiments.  And whilst I doubt it is going to earn a place on anyone's forever shelf it certainly goes to educate the reader on some of the more strange and terrible moments in science from the last couple of hundred years.