In 1667 and 1668 Paris physicians fought bitterly over whether animal blood could be transfused into people. Jean Denis, a Montpellier doctor shaped by Descartes, transfused blood from calves and lambs into five patients, claiming three were cured and rejuvenated, while two died. Rival members of the medical faculty campaigned against him, and when one patient, Antoine Mauroy, died after a third transfusion, his widow sued Denis. The court cleared Denis after finding the widow had poisoned her husband with arsenic. In 1670 the Paris Parlement banned transfusions altogether, a ban that lasted until after the Revolution.

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.