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Early work on Herophilos - March the 8th, 1889

The dog is as wretched as ever, and stubborn as well. It tried biting me as I attempted to remove it from its cage, physically resisting and refusing to budge when I tried to get it to move - I stuffed my heavily gloved wrist into its mouth to give it something to chew on for a few moments, then immediately strapped a muzzle onto its fetid snout. It took a greater deal of strength than it should have to take that dog out, it clung tenaciously to the floor of the cage when I pulled on its collar. Eventually I got tired of pulling on the beast and turned the cage on its side, causing Herophilos to spill out of its cage in a snarling furor.

After that little clash, I leashed Herophilos and walked it out to the scientific compound for initial analysis, shaving, and preparation for flaying and first work on the animal's brain. The animal simply did not want to go, Herophilos does not trust me at all. What they say about dogs is a lie, this creature is certainly not my best friend. It has no intention of being my best friend at all in its current state; but I will forgive it, it is but a simple animal that does not recognize that it is part of a very great plan. As I make it into a more complex being, it will worship me as a God for what I will do to it; it will sing praise to me of what I have done for it. I will give this silly brute the gift of knowledge, a gift greater than a mange-free coat and a diet not scrounged out of a gutter. And very soon, other animals will want to follow suit, to follow Herophilos's example.

I began surgical work earlier today on Herophilos after a very extensive shaving - it was difficult, bloody work as shaving had agitated the mange over certain spots of the b***h's body. I could hear the pitiful animal howling through the muzzle as my razor brushed upon those spots, it flailed against the bindings in vain. I could not stand to watch the dog writhe around - all of the moving it did made my hand rather unsteady, so I jabbed into its skin more than enough times until I decided to sedate the animal. I do not want to damage the musculature benath its skin; I have very careful work to do and I cannot afford to have anything go wrong because my subject cannot stop trying to move around.

The mange in itself is annoying. I had not planned to do the flaying this early, but it may come along sooner than I had expected. If only to rid the poor fiend of a problem that has likely been plaguing it for its entire life, as well as make way for the first steps of the humanizing process...

Right now, Herophilos is shaved, its bleeding spots are bandaged and sterilized - I cannot lose the dog to infection - and placed in a kennel cell for recovery. Tomorrow I will begin work on its limbs and brain. The flaying will be a gradual process, as to give the beast time to regrow a new skin over the spots where skin was removed in its entirety; to deprive the animal of all of its skin is nonsensical and unconducive to having the creature to survive to be worked upon in further experiments and achieve manhood. The mangy old coat will be removed piece by piece, with new patches of skin to regrow, until the animal's body is covered entirely by the new skin - skin not covered in fur and mange. I will only leave the scalp area not completely removed, so that Herophilos can grow back some head hair when it is made into a woman.

Some say that this is cruel. Perhaps it is, humanizing an animal is a very grueling process... but the end product, it will be perfect. Despite all of the pain and the hardships, it will finally become a thinking, reasoning man. The end, I feel, justifies these means. I am certain others will agree once they lay eyes upon the woman that was once a dog, named Rowan, an intelligent person who can read and write and talk, it will be hard for them to believe that she was once an animal..! That will show the scientific community what-for. They will applaud my brilliance, and regret ever chasing me out of Britain!

Enough of my gloating... It is getting rather late, I should settle in for some rest and prepare for further work on Herophilos tomorrow. Good-night.

Neither man nor beast - May the 5th, 1889

Finally, I have a chance to sit down at my desk and do some writing on the progress of the dog, Herophilos. I am personally disgusted at my inability to keep up with my own journal, yet I expect others to keep detailed notes on their own subjects -- it has been about one week shy of two months since I last wrote. I have been in something of a state of exhaust lately, from dealing with new subjects and seeing my new assistants off of the boats, then returning to my surgical work to the point where I am too tired to write.

In between all of this, I have been working on both the dog and the goat. Herophilos has become... rather intelligent, I dare say. Nearly a month ago it, had begun to talk - gurgling out simple words like "father" and "thank you" at first. I have been reading to it a lot lately out of simple books meant for children, and as of now it can construct simple sentences. Since it has begun to speak, I have been teaching it to identify itself as "Rowan."

Although a stubborn creature, Rowan is very clever and resourceful - and I've noticed a behavioral pattern when teaching her: She does not outwardly pay attention to my lessons, but later proves that she was listening and watching by demonstrating the things I have taught her that day. She is learning how to manipulate simple tools -- I am not allowing her to have anything potentially harmful, but she had figured out what pencils are for just two weeks ago - she can draw symbols and write her name now. She still hasn't quite grasped that they're meant for writing on paper just yet, as the inside of her cage was covered with meaningless scribbles and lines. I have been trying to teach her the alphabet, which she is slowly taking in but is much more partial to speech than writing right now. I have moved her to a room in the laboratory since her latest progress, she has long outgrown her cage.

She is getting close to being considered 'finished,' she just needs to recover completely from the major surgeries as well as undergo a few more adjustory and correctional excursions. Her posture is also rather awkward, to amend this I tied a board to her back so that she may walk upright, as well as a posture collar around her neck so that her chin may point forward instead of down at the ground. I feel that it may take a few more months before she can be considered complete, and I especially want her to start standing up straight rather than slouching. I have been focusing a lot of energy on her lately, and I feel that in the time she's recovering I can now have the time to begin work on the new animal subjects that have arrived.

I plan to go visit her each day and try to teach her new things between work on the new animals. I want to give her the gift of music, perhaps I will get her to learn the fiddle.