Let the semen of a man putrify by itself in a container with the highest putrefaction of horse dung for forty days, or until it begins at last to live, move, and be agitated, which can easily be seen.  After this time it will be in some degree like a human being, but nevertheless, transparent and without body.  If now, after this, it be every day nourished and fed cautiously and prudently with elixir of human blood, and kept for forty days in the perpetual and equal heat of horse dung, it becomes thenceforth a true and living infant, having all the members of a child that is born from a woman, but much smaller.  This we call a humunculus; and it should afterwards be educated with the greatest care and zeal, until it grows and begins to display intelligence.  Now this is one of the greatest secrets which God has revealed to moral and fallible man.

Rabbi Judah Loew (1513-1609) of Prague and the Golem

[Rabbi Judah Loew (1513-1609) of Prague] sent for his son-in-law, Isaac ben Simson, who was a priest, and for his pupil, Jacob ben Chayim Sasson, who was a Levite, and confided to them the mysterious manner in which he hoped to be able to make the Golem.

My second Machine, or Automaton, is a Duck, in which I represent the Mechanism of the Intestines which are employed in the Operations of Eating, Drinking, and Digestion:   Wherein the Working of all the Parts necessary for those Actions is exactly imitated.  The Duck stretches out its Neck to take Corn out of your Hand; it swallows it, digests it, and discharges it digested by the usual Passage.

Vaucanson's mechanical duck (1738)

...My object in subjecting this fluid to a long-continued electric action, through the intervention of the porous stone, was to form, if possible, crystals of silica at one of the poles of the battery, but I failed in accomplishing this by those means.  On the 14th day from the commencement of the experiment, I observed, through a lens, a few small white excrescences or nipples projecting from about the middle of the electrified stone, and nearly under the dropping of the fluid above.  On the 18th day, these projections enlarged, and 7 or 8 filaments, each of them longer than the excrescence from which it grew, made their appearance on each of the nipples.

On the 22nd day, these appearances were more elevated and distinct, and on the 26th day, each figure assumed the form of a perfect insect, standing erect on a few bristles which formed its tail.  Till this period I had no notion that these appearances were any other than an incipient mineral formation; but it was not until the 28th day, when I plainly perceived these little creatures move their legs, that I felt any surprise, and I must own that when this took place, I was not a little astonished.

Crosse's acarus (1837)

I endeavored to detach, with the point of a needle, one or two of them from its position on the stone, but they immediately died, and I was obliged to wait patiently for a few days longer, when they separated themselves from the stone, and moved about at pleasure, although they had been for some time after their birth apparently averse to motion.  In the course of a few weeks, about a hundred of them made their appearance on the stone.  I observed that at first each of them fixed itself for a considerable time in one spot, appearing, as far as I could judge, to feed by suction; but when a ray of light from the sun was directed upon it, it seemed disturbed, and removed itself to the shaded part of the stone.  Out of about a hundred insects, not above 5 or 6 were born on the south side of the stone.  I examined them with the microscope, and observed that the smaller ones appeared to have only 6 legs, but the larger ones 8.  It would be superfluous to attempt a description of these little mites, when so excellent a one has been transmitted from Paris.  It seems that they are of the genus Acarus, but of a species not hitherto observed.  I have had 3 separate formations of similar insects at different times, from fresh portions of the same fluid, with the same apparatus.  As I considered the result of my experiment rather extraordinary, I made some of my friends acquainted with it, amongst whom were some highly scientific gentlemen, and they plainly perceived the insect in various states.  I likewise transmitted some of them to one of our most distinguished physiologists in London, and the opinion of this gentleman, as well as of other eminent persons to whom he showed them, coincided with that of the gentleman of the Academie des Sciences, as to their genus and species.  I have never ventured an opinion as to the cause of their birth, and for a very simple reason--I was unable to form one.  The most simple solution of the problem which occurred to me, was that they arose from ova deposited by insects floating in the atmosphere, and that they might possibly be hatched by the electric action.  Still, I could not imagine that an ovum could shoot out filaments, and that those filaments would become bristles; and moreover, I could not detect, on the closest examination, any remains of a shell.  Again, we have no right to assume that electric action is necessary to vitality, until such fact shall have been most distinctly proved.  I next imagined, as others have done, that they might have originated from the water, and consequently made a close examination of several hundred vessels, filled with the same water as that which held in solution the silicate of potassa, in the same room, which vessels constituted the cells of a large Voltaic battery, used without acid.  In none of these vessels could I perceive the trace of an insect of that description.  I likewise closely examined the crevices and most dusty parts of the room with no better success.  In the course of some months, indeed, these insects so increased, that when they were strong enough to leave their moistened birthplace, they issued out in different directions, I suppose in quest of food; but they generally huddled together under a card or piece of paper in their neighborhood, as if to avoid light and disturbance....

Mary Shelley (1797 - 1851)

Title page, Frankenstein (1818)