The Necessary Evil (1899) features Dr. Armand Caresco, a conscienceless surgeon carrying out medical experiments. Caresco sees himself as an intellectual superman whose discoveries might enable humankind to take a leap forward. This daring book dared to broach such shocking topics as the methodology and occasional necessity of hysterectomies. Andre Couvreur (1863-1944), himself a medical doctor, depicts Caresco's surgical exploits in an explicit, even flamboyant, fashion that harks back to the notorious Marquis de Sade. In spite of his flagrant disapproval of Caresco's morality and alleged...

Dr. Caresco returns in Caresco, Superman (1904), in which the brilliant but mad scientist rules the body-shaped island of Eucrasia whose inhabitants have been transformed--"improved"--by a variety of advanced surgical techniques. The natives are addicted to sensual pleasures, subservient to the will of Caresco, whom they call the "Superman," for fear that he will castrate them--or worse. Andre Couvreur (1865-1944) was a medical doctor who penned several medical treatises, and was also the author of eight romans scientifiques dealing with "medical concepts" featuring the mad scientists Doctor...