Dr. Ox's Experiment
 Illustration by Lorenz Frølich from Doctor Ox (1874)
| |
| Author | Jules Gabriel Verne |
|---|---|
| Original title | Une fantaisie du docteur Ox |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Musée des Familles |
Publication date |
March, 1872 |
Dr. Ox's Experiment (French: Une fantaisie du docteur Ox, "A Fantasy of Doctor Ox") is a humorous science fiction short story by the French writer Jules Verne, published in 1872. It describes an experiment by one Dr. Ox, and is inspired by the real or alleged effects of oxygen on living things.
Plot
The setting of the story is the imaginary village of Quiquendone in West Flanders (now part of Belgium) whose citizens are described as "well-to-do folks, wise, prudent, sociable, with even tempers, hospitable, perhaps a bit heavy in conversation as in mind"; and where even "the dogs don't bite, and the cats don't scratch". Van Tricasse, the town's mayor, claims that "the man who dies without ever having decided upon anything in his life has very nearly attained to perfection."
A prosperous scientist Dr. Ox comes to the authorities and offers to build a novel gas lighting system, at no cost to the town. The offer is gladly accepted. Dr. Ox and his assistant Gédéon Ygène (whose surnames happen to form the word oxygène, "oxygen") propose to use electrolysis to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen, and pump the two gases through separate pipes to the city.
The doctor's secret plan is however to conduct a large scale experiment on the effect of oxygen on plants, animals and humans, and so he pumps an excess of the invisible and odorless gas through all lamps. The enriched air has remarkable effects on the town. It accelerates the growth of plants, and causes excitement and aggressiveness in animals and humans.
Eventually the excited citizens of Quiquendone decide to go to war against the neighboring village of Virgamen, to avenge an old offense: in 1195, a cow belonging to that town had dared to step into a Quiquendonian field and eat some mouthfuls of their grass. However, as the army was on the way to battle, an accident at Dr. Ox's plant causes oxygen and hydrogen to mix, producing a huge explosion that destroys the plant.
The story ends with the town back to its traditional slow and quiet way of life. Dr. Ox and his assistant, who were not at the plant when the accident happened, disappeared without trace.
Publication history
The story Une fantaisie du docteur Ox ("A fantasy of Dr. Ox") was first read in 1872 at the Hotel of the City of Amiens. It was published in installments between March and May of the same year in the magazine Musée des Familles, and from January 6 to February 6 in Journal d'Amiens.
The story was re-published in 1874 by Hetzel as the main piece of a Verne short-story anthology, Doctor Ox, that included three older tales. The spicy, ironic, satyric, and erotic elements of the original text were significantly expunged for this version.