The name hound originally means a type of dog with an aggressive nature, which is specialized with a powerful sense of smell and a high speed, used over a prey. Here, it is described as an enormous beast with huge jaws, covered in dark fur which had supernatural glowing eyes. Baskerville had a scientific military base on Dartmoor, which carried out secretive genetic experiments on animals such as rats, mice, dogs and sheep to breed monsters and gigantic hounds. (Comunity, 2010) During the World War II, genetically modified animals were used on the battlefields.
They were used for supplies, guard posts, carry messages, intelligence and a courageous companion to the soldiers. Sheldon reveals that the name hound is an acronym rather than just a word. Project H.O.
U.N.D is named after 5 women and men, Jack O'mara, Elaine Dyson, Leonard Hansen just to name a few, and was executed on the Baskerville military base in Dartmoor. They developed a hallucinogenic drug which rendered its user incredibly suggestible.
It was initially used for as an anti-personal weapon to totally disorientate and enervate the enemy using fear stimulus. Prolonged exposure to the drug results in the damages the frontal lobe of the target, causing paranoia, dementia and even manipulates them to be uncontrollably aggressive. As a result, this project was shut down in 1986. This drug was used in the fog at the moor, by scientist Bob Frankland to make the story characters, Sir Henry Baskerville, Holmes and Watson hallucinate and see things exactly as Frankland wanted in the hound.
(Wiki) According to the book, Bob Frankland was interested in astronomy, often involved with his telescope and used it to keep an eye on the dense moor for anything suspicious. But in a different narrative version shown on TV drama, and movies, he was entitled as the principal researcher of the project H.O.U.
N.D. The ground of the Dewer's hollow was filled with pressure pads, designed by Frankland that triggered the release of fog along with the drug when it is being stepped. This made the ordinary dog seem like a hound as imagined by the viewers. Stapleton knew his way to avoid this steps and he kept the beast in Grimpen mire.
