ABSTRACT
In the novel, Cornelius Steggall is a widower and physician of independent means who carries out an experiment on his niece Luris to save her from a wasting sickness. She appears to fall victim to chlorosis, a condition repeatedly attributed to young women, and is transformed into a case by Steggall. The actual transfusion is not described. It appears to go well, apart from Steggall losing consciousness temporarily. A startling disparity emerges between the transformed Luris’s words and her former behaviour, as if Seamore’s personality has been transferred into her body. In discussions of transfusion, there had been some debate over whether to use animal or human blood. A story engaging with this issue was Edith Nesbit’s ‘Blood,’ published under the pen-name Fabian Bland in To-Day. Monthly Magazine of Scientific Socialism in October 1886.
