Amnesia: Where did the Servants Come From

[bluel0bster]

As I understood it, servants were a result of Alexander locking them in the wine cellars and poisoning them, turning them into what they are (as hinted at by the flashback dialogue of the servants talking in the cellar). I always understood this as being a one-time event that took place sometime between when Daniel took the amnesia potion and when Daniel wakes up at the beginning of the game.

I assumed this because it doesn't seemed probable that the servants were the same way we see them in the game as there's no way Daniel would have stayed in Brennenburg had the servants been as deformed as they are in their current state.

However, I just ran across a note from my second play through, which reads:

Unfortunately, only a few of the servants have been remedied as the procedure proved difficult. The others will perish, and eventually I will have to create more of them to keep my experiments running.

which seems to suggest that the process of turning servants into gatherers is an on-going process.

Any insight on what's going on with the servants, where they came from, and when/how they were turned into gatherers?