In An Invasion of Macrobes (1909), Professor Tornada, unhinged by the death of his wife and daughter, and unable to withstand the blow of having been rejected by the French Academy, unleashes giant, flesh-eating bacteria, immune to the assaults of artillery and high explosives, on Paris, intent on smashing it flat. In the ground-breaking The Androgyne (1922), Tornada turns a man into a woman. André 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 Caresco, then Professor Tornada. These are collected in a series of five volumes, translated and annotated by Brian Stableford, presenting for the first time the ground-breaking works of this pioneer of French science fiction.