Doctor Frederick Frankenstein, Yale graduate, is a "professor, the Dean of Anatomy at New York's most famous institute of higher learning, the Johns, Miriam, and Anthony Hopkins School of Medicine."

He comes from a long line of scientists who have been trying to create life since 1201.

Frederick's grandfather
"Brought dead tissue back to life."
"Created a horrifying monster."
"Prowled around graveyards, digging up freshly buried corpses."

But Frederick is devoted to pure science and "deals in fact not fiction…truth and reason."
Yet, upon reading the journals and finding the secret laboratory of his grandfather, he embarks upon a journey to create life. How can he do it? 

"Take your knife, create a life." 
Exhume a corpse and steal a brain. Is this scientifically possible? Or is it just musical comedy?

Actually, it sounds a lot like organ donation. Organs can be transplanted from one body (living or dead) to another. Is this how Dr. Frankenstein created the Monster?

In today's scientific world, donated organs, often referred to as the “gift of life" are used by doctors to replace damaged or failing ones. The first successful kidney transplant taken from a cadaver was performed in 1962. In fact, some transplanted organs can come only from someone deceased. Today, however, living donors can provide people in need with a kidney, liver, lung, and in extremely rare circumstance, heart or intestines.
 
Do the doctors use electricity to transplant an organ? No. Surgery is the answer.  

But what about Frederick Frankenstein's "lightning bolts and thunder" to "ignite a mortal spark?" After all, a heart does have electrical signals that cause it to beat.

Could this be compared to the use of defibrillators that can help to start a heart?

A defibrillator is a device that gives an electric shock to the heart to move blood to the brain or other organs. If a heart is not beating, a cardiopulmonary bypass machine (also known as a heart lung machine), or an ECMO machine, keeps a person alive while their heart is stopped or even removed, because it acts as a surrogate for the normal functions of the heart and lungs. 

"Through the wind swept air, listen to his prayer, stir its brain, let breathing start."
Can electricity start breathing? What about the use of a ventilator?

A ventilator is a machine powered by electricity that helps a person breathe when unable to do so for him or herself.

It seems that Frederick Frankenstein and his grandfather Victor weren't so far off the mark.
"Now we call on science
To end death's evil reign
We shout in brave defiance
This soul shall live again."

YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN is a little bit of science and a lot of musical comedy.

All quotes are lyrics from THE NEW MEL BROOKS MUSICAL YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN.

For more lyrics from the show, click here. 

Original Broadway Cast. Photo: Paul Kolnik