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Dr. Ox’s Experiment
	Illustration by Lorenz Frølich from Doctor Ox (1874)
Author	Jules Gabriel Verne
Original title	Une fantaisie du docteur Ox
Language	French
Genre	Science fiction
Publisher	Musée des Familles
Publication date	March 1872
Publication place	France

Dr. Ox's Experiment (French: Une fantaisie du docteur Ox, "A Fantasy of Doctor Ox") is a humorous science fiction novella by the French writer Jules Verne, published in 1872.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5] 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."^[1]

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.^[6] It was published in installments between March and May of the same year in the magazine Musée des Familles, and from 6 January to 6 February in Journal d'Amiens.^[7]^[8]^[9]

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.^[2] The spicy, ironic, satyric, and erotic elements of the original text were significantly expunged for this version.^[10]^[7]

Notes

The town of Quiquendone may have been intended as a caricature of Amiens, where Verne was living at the time.^[11] The name of the town sounds in French as qui qu'en donne?, which could be translated as "who gives?".

The effects of oxygen on living things, as described in the story, are grossly exaggerated or even imaginary.

Derived works

On the stage

Dr. Ox reappears as the main villain of the play Journey Through the Impossible, written by Verne in 1882.

The original story was adapted by Jacques Offenbach as Le docteur Ox, an opéra-bouffe in three acts and six tableaux, premiered on 26 January 1877 with a libretto by Arnold Mortier, Philippe Gille and Verne himself.^[12]

Another version by Annibale Bizzelli, Il Dottor Oss, was published in 1936.^[13]^[14]

In 1964 Pierre Max Dubois adapted the story as a ballet son a libretto by José Bruyr.^[15]

It was also adapted by Gavin Bryars as Doctor Ox's Experiment, an opera in two acts with a libretto by Blake Morrison, first performed on 15 June 1998.

Other

The H. G. Wells's novel The Food of the Gods (1904) has similarities to Dr. Ox's Experiment, "both dealing with the alterations in humankind and its environment due to changes in the chemicals the species is supplied".^[16]

The story was adapted to comics strip form by Mathieu Sapin,^{[citation needed]} and it inspired a 1950 comics album by André Franquin^[17] It also was adapted in 1964 by Mino Milani with illustrations by Grazia Nidasio for the Italian children's magazine Corriere dei Piccoli and extended with several original stories featuring the same character, published therein from 1964 to 1969.^[18]

An audio version was broadcast by the radio station France Culture in 2017.^[19]

References

^ ^a ^b A Fantasy of Dr Ox, Jules Verne, trans. Andrew Browne, Hesperus Press, 2003
^ ^a ^b Jules Verne, Le Docteur Ox. Re-edited by J. Hetzel, 1920.
^ Pierre Schoentjes (2000): "Rhétorique de l'argumentation et rhétorique de la fiction dans Une fantaisie du docteur Ox". in Récits de la pensée : études sur le roman et l'essai, edited by Philippe Gilles. Sédès, Paris.
^ Volker Dehs (2015): "L'Abécédaire du Docteur Ox". Bulletin de la Société Jules Verne volume 188, pages 34-67.
^ Pierre-André Touttain (1978): "Une cruelle fantaisie : Le Docteur Ox". Revue des Lettres Modernes. Jules Verne 2 : l'écriture vernienne. Minard. Paris.
^ T. Jeunet (1873), in the Journal d’Amiens Quote: "Last year, Mr. Jules Verne, acceding to lively demands, agreed to give a reading in the grand room of the Hôtel de Ville d’Amiens. This reading was extracted from a charming literary fantasy that appeared shortly thereafter in the Musée de Familles; and is going to be published, within a year or two, with beautiful illustrations, by the publisher Hertzel. Thanks to the kindness of Mr. Jules Verne and the kind authorization of the editor, theJournal d’Amiens can now publish in installments this work, still unavailable in bookstores, of the popular author of the Extraordinary Voyages."
^ ^a ^b Olivier Dumas (1984): '"Le docteur Ox, censuré par Hetzel". Bulletin de la Société Jules Verne, volume 71, issue 3
^ Jules Verne (2000): Contes et nouvelles de Jules Verne. Éditions Ouest-France.
^ Jules Verne (2011): Une fantaisie du docteur Ox. Collection "2 euros", number 5298.
^ Jules Verne (1874), letter to Hetzel. Quote: "My dear friend, on Monday, or Tuesday at the latest, I will send you myself the Doctor Ox, and we will see what has to be suppressed for the kids."
^ Jules Verne, letter to Charles Wallut. Quote: "On the wish of my wife, I am establishing myself at Amiens, a town that is wise, policed, with even temper..."
^ Jean-Claude Yon, Jacques Offenbach, Gallimard, 2000, page 554.
^ Annibale Bizzelli, Antonio Lega, Tullio Serafin, and Jules Verne (1936): Il dottor Oss : fantasia lirica : due atti in tre quadri. Published by G. Ricordi & C., Milan.
^ Robert Pourvoyeur (1979): Jules Verne et le théâtre, preface to Clovis Dardentor, 10/18, issue 1308, page 30.
^ http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb41438574s/PUBLIC
^ Taves, Brian (2015). Hollywood Presents Jules Verne: The Father of Science Fiction on Screen. University Press of Kentucky. p. 314.
^ André Franquin (1950): Il y a un sorcier à Champignac, part of the Spirou et Fantasio series.
^ Mino Milani and Grazia Nidasio (2013): Il dottor Oss. Tutte le storie 1964-1969. Published by Comicout.
^ Hervé Prudon (2017), Une expérience du Docteur Ox]. Radio broadcast by France Culture, 2017-05-25, with online transcript.