The Mad doctor...
Throughout the 20th and into the 21fst century there have been many "Mad Scientists" or doctors depicted in everything from books to film and radio.
They would conduct grisly or horrible experiments on their human victims. Often these men of medicine would be kind and well mannered. Only to drug you, tie you up and conduct their vail acts upon the protagonist. Even Dr. Frankenstein would be framed this way in the first movie made in 1931.
Have you ever wondered why so many characters would have such a similar profile?
Believe it or not, they were all inspired by one man...
Dr. H. H. Holmes...
Dr. Henry Howard Holmes has mostly been forgotten in our day and age. This man has been dubbed America's first serial killer. Our very own Jack the Ripper. Though Holmes actually killed far more people than evil old Jack did. He often posed as a Sophisticated well educated, professional Doctor and loving dutiful husband. H.H. Holmes wasn't even his real name.
Ever the con man his real name was Herman Webster Mudget.
He was well educated even finished his education at the University of Michigan's Department of Medicine and Surgery in 1884. He was married even had children. However, he had made numerous frauds, scams, and swindles under many alias's defrauding many creditors. It was his time in Chicago that would earn his claim to fame... If you would ever want to go down in history as your nation's worst serial killer.
In 1887 he began construction of his "Murder House" as the public would dub it. It was a massive building with three floors. During construction, he would hire and fire construction workers. To make sure no one would ever know the layout of the building. After it was finished in 1892. If you were on the first floor you wouldn't even know anything was out of place. There was a Pharmacy, offices, and rented rooms.
However, should you check into the hotel parts that's where your nightmares begin...
Dark hallways that lead nowhere. Bedrooms without windows, and doors that locked from the outside. After you went to your room. He'd lock you in, turn on the gas from a master control valve, and watch you slowly suffocate from a peephole in your wall.
You would think that your pounding on the walls would alert someone that something was wrong. Not a chance the walls were filled with enough asbestos to make it soundproof.
No one would ever hear you scream.
After your death, your body would be dumped down one of many shutes. Which he hid on the floors or hallways. In the basement, your body would be stripped of flesh and your bones would be cleaned and sold to medical schools. The meat would either be thrown into an acid bath or cremated in a cremation oven.
Now you would be the lucky one.
The basement was also a "Torture chamber," for which you would be submitted to everything from acid burns to being stretched on a medieval-looking rack. Apparently he wanted to make a race of giants...
Ouch!!!
As well as many other horrors I'd rather not list here. No one was safe from this psychopath. Before his luck ran out after he was looked up in prison. He had murdered lovers and even the three children of one of his accomplices.
The more tragic part of this story he built his castle during the World's Columbian Exposition or Worlds Fair of 1893.
It was suspected that some 200 people may have been murder by Holmes. But no one will ever really know for forensic science could not identify all the missing people that check-in to the Murder Castle. Only 60 were able to be identified. This would only be found out months after Holmes was hanged for the murders of Benjamin Pitezel, his three children, and fraud.
While Holmes, for the most part, is mostly forgotten and his Murder Castle that burned to the ground in August 1896. His Legacy lives on in a twisted way for the many mad doctors and scientists in pop culture.
Some even sport handlebar mustaches... Even the Saw film franchise borrows from this fend.
So, next time you watch an old black and white film that has an evil doctor torturing a screaming platinum blonde. Remember there was a real man that inspired this freak.
The End...
#halloween #madscientist #popculture #hhholmesThe Mad doctor...
Throughout the 20th and into the 21fst century there have been many "Mad Scientists" or doctors depicted in everything from books to film and radio.
They would conduct grisly or horrible experiments on their human victims. Often these men of medicine would be kind and well mannered. Only to drug you, tie you up and conduct their vail acts upon the protagonist. Even Dr. Frankenstein would be framed this way in the first movie made in 1931.
Have you ever wondered why so many characters would have such a similar profile?
Believe it or not, they were all inspired by one man...
Dr. H. H. Holmes...
Dr. Henry Howard Holmes has mostly been forgotten in our day and age. This man has been dubbed America's first serial killer. Our very own Jack the Ripper. Though Holmes actually killed far more people than evil old Jack did. He often posed as a Sophisticated well educated, professional Doctor and loving dutiful husband. H.H. Holmes wasn't even his real name.
Ever the con man his real name was Herman Webster Mudget.
He was well educated even finished his education at the University of Michigan's Department of Medicine and Surgery in 1884. He was married even had children. However, he had made numerous frauds, scams, and swindles under many alias's defrauding many creditors. It was his time in Chicago that would earn his claim to fame... If you would ever want to go down in history as your nation's worst serial killer.
In 1887 he began construction of his "Murder House" as the public would dub it. It was a massive building with three floors. During construction, he would hire and fire construction workers. To make sure no one would ever know the layout of the building. After it was finished in 1892. If you were on the first floor you wouldn't even know anything was out of place. There was a Pharmacy, offices, and rented rooms.
However, should you check into the hotel parts that's where your nightmares begin...
Dark hallways that lead nowhere. Bedrooms without windows, and doors that locked from the outside. After you went to your room. He'd lock you in, turn on the gas from a master control valve, and watch you slowly suffocate from a peephole in your wall.
You would think that your pounding on the walls would alert someone that something was wrong. Not a chance the walls were filled with enough asbestos to make it soundproof.
No one would ever hear you scream.
After your death, your body would be dumped down one of many shutes. Which he hid on the floors or hallways. In the basement, your body would be stripped of flesh and your bones would be cleaned and sold to medical schools. The meat would either be thrown into an acid bath or cremated in a cremation oven.
Now you would be the lucky one.
The basement was also a "Torture chamber," for which you would be submitted to everything from acid burns to being stretched on a medieval-looking rack. Apparently he wanted to make a race of giants...
Ouch!!!
As well as many other horrors I'd rather not list here. No one was safe from this psychopath. Before his luck ran out after he was looked up in prison. He had murdered lovers and even the three children of one of his accomplices.
The more tragic part of this story he built his castle during the World's Columbian Exposition or Worlds Fair of 1893.
It was suspected that some 200 people may have been murder by Holmes. But no one will ever really know for forensic science could not identify all the missing people that check-in to the Murder Castle. Only 60 were able to be identified. This would only be found out months after Holmes was hanged for the murders of Benjamin Pitezel, his three children, and fraud.
While Holmes, for the most part, is mostly forgotten and his Murder Castle that burned to the ground in August 1896. His Legacy lives on in a twisted way for the many mad doctors and scientists in pop culture.
Some even sport handlebar mustaches... Even the Saw film franchise borrows from this fend.
So, next time you watch an old black and white film that has an evil doctor torturing a screaming platinum blonde. Remember there was a real man that inspired this freak.
The End...
#halloween #madscientist #popculture #hhholmes
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