"Spark of Life"
From "Stranger than Science"
by Frank Edwards © 1959, 1987

Did an obscure amateur scientist discover the spark of life? Did Andrew Crosse accidentally stumble upon a mixture of chemicals and electricity which produced living things from a lifeless compound? If he did not, then just what did he accomplish? The record of his work is clear, only the enigma of the results remains to plague science.

The neighbors of Andrew Crosse regarded him as more devil than man. They did not understand the bright flashes that lighted his laboratory windows at night when he was tinkering with his crude electrical devices. Not only was he dreaded and shunned as "the thunder and lightning man," but he was denounced as an atheist, a blasphemer, and a Frankenstein who had best be put in chains for the common safety. read