Charles Rabiqueau
La magicienne électrique Baccha veritatis
Charles Rabiqueau, Le spectacle du feu élémentaire, ou cours d'électricité expérimentale, Jombert | Knapen | Duchesne, Paris 1753, p. 242.
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In section LIX of his course of experimental electricity, the lawyer and engineer Charles Rabiqueau describes the "magicienne électrique" nicknamed Baccha veritatis, which he devised to entertain spectators: an electrified figure that bristles its hair, gives a shock to those who ask unjust or reckless questions, and grants a nod of the head to those it favours with a good answer. The author deliberately withholds the mechanism, leaving the reader to guess it. It is an eighteenth-century antecedent of the mechanical-scientific oracle that "answers" the audience's questions.
Language
French
