FT264

Craig Venter is being portrayed as a modern Frankenstein, creating life from inanimate matter and starting another debate about scientists “playing god”. But he is by no means the first scientist said to have created life in the laboratory.

This goes back to the Renaiss­ance, when one of the great goals of alchemy was the creation of a homunculus, a miniature human being. Paracelsus, greatest of the alchemists (in his own view, at least – see 'Paracelsus: The Mercurial mage') provided a recipe to create such a being. Semen is sealed in a glass container and buried in horse manure for 40 days.