A dead frog helped inspire Frankenstein

Frankenstein was literally inspired by an Italian physician making amputated amphibian legs kick wildly with metal probes. Luigi Galvani discovered 'animal electricity' when a spark made a dead frog twitch. He wrongly thought the electricity was generated by the flesh itself instead of the dissimilar metals acting as a battery, but his morbid puppet show accidentally birthed the entire field of neuroscience.