Sir Christopher Wren - scientist.

[Paul Clerkin]

Sir Christopher Wren - scientist.

“I Have Injected Wine and Ale in a living Dog into the Mass of Blood by a Veine, in good Quantities, till I have made him extremely drunk,” wrote the young Christopher Wren in 1656. “But soon after he Pisseth it out…it will be too long to tell you the Effects of Opium, Scammony & other things that I have tried this way: I am now in further pursuit of the Experiment.”

Well, you had to find some way to pass the time when you were an impoverished intellectual of staunchly Royalist stock during the closing years of the Commonwealth. Wren designed gadgets, including a duplicating machine, a seed drill, and a transparent beehive. He observed the stars, was a noted mathematician, and practised anatomy. None of this was architecture. Even by the multi-tasking standards of the day, Wren was unusual.

http://www.hughpearman.com/articles3/wren.html