My Stop in London

Following my brief holiday in Paris, my wife and I traveled to London by rail under the English Channel.   Although my primary purpose was to visit the Francis Crick Institute as a member of its Science Advisory Board, we had some time for the cultural treats of the British capital.   On one brief excursion, we revisited the National Portrait Gallery, where it is always possible to view portraits of people whose accomplishments are currently on my mind.   For instance, in a single room, I found portraits of several people involved directly or indirectly in the composition of “Frankenstein,” a book we will soon read in MHC360.  These include the author, Mary Shelley; her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, an advocate for women’s rights who died giving birth to Mary; her father (William Goodwin; not shown here); her husband (Percy Shelley; not shown); and Lord Byron (their companion in the mountains when “Frankenstein” was written).  The room also houses a remarkable portrait of Edward Jenner, the father of vaccination against smallpox; can you see and explain the leg of a cow and the book describing his experiments?