An account of the mechanism of an automaton, or image playing on the German-flute: as it was presented in a memoire, to the gentlemen of the Royal-Academy of Sciences at Paris ... By M.V., inventor ... of the ... machine. Together with a description of an artificial duck, eating, drinking, macerating the food, and voiding excrements; pluming her wings, picking her feathers, and performing several operations in imitation of a living duck ... as also that of another image, no less wonderful than the first, playing on the tabor and pipe ... / Translated out of the French original, by J.T. Desaguliers.

  • Vaucanson, Jacques de, 1709-1782
Date:
1742
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An account of the mechanism of an automaton, or image playing on the German-flute: as it was presented in a memoire, to the gentlemen of the Royal-Academy of Sciences at Paris ... By M.V., inventor ... of the ... machine. Together with a description of an artificial duck, eating, drinking, macerating the food, and voiding excrements; pluming her wings, picking her feathers, and performing several operations in imitation of a living duck ... as also that of another image, no less wonderful than the first, playing on the tabor and pipe ... / Translated out of the French original, by J.T. Desaguliers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in an Animal by the Guts) quite to the Anus, where there is a Sphincter that lets it out, I don't pretend to give this as a perfect Digeftion, capable of producing Blood and nutritive Particles for the Support of the A- nimal. I hope no body will be fo unkind as to upbraid me with pretending to any fuch Thing. I only pretend to imitate the Me- chanifm of that Action in three Things, viz. Firft, to f wallow the Corn \ fecondly, to macerate or diffolve it •, thirdly, to make it come out fenfibly changed from what it was, Neverthelefs, it was no eafy Matter to find Means for thofe three Actionsi and thofe Means may perhaps deferve fame Attention from thofe that may expeEl more, They will fee what Contrivances have been made ufe of to tnake this artificial Duck take up the Corn, and fuck it up quite to its Sto?nach -, and there in a little Space to make a Chymical Elaboratory to decompound or feparate the Inte grant Parts of the Foody and then drive it away at Pleafure thrd Circumvolutions of Pipes, which difcharge it at the other End of the Body of the Duck. I don*t believe the Anatomifts can find any thing wanting in the Conftruftion of its Wings. Not only every Bone has been imi¬ tated, but all the Apophyfes or Eminences of each Bone, They are. regularly obferv'd\as well as the different Joints : The Bending, the Cavities, and the three Bones of the Wing are very difiincl, The firft, which is the Humerus, has its Motion of Rotation every Way with the Bone that performs the Office of the Omoplat, Scapula, or Shoulder-Blade : The fécond Bone, which is the Cubitus of the Wing, has its Motion with the Humerus by a Joint which the Anatomifts call Ginglymus ; the third, which is the Radius, turns in a Cavity of the Humerus, arid is fafierfd by its other Ends to the little End of the Wing, juft as in the Animal, The Infpeftion of the Machine will better jhew that Nature has been juflly imitated, than a longer Detail, which wuu'd only be an anatomical Defcrip- tion of aWing, To fioew that the Contrivances for moving thefe Wings are nothing like what is made ufe of in thofe wonderful Pieces of Art of the Cock mov'd by the Clock at Lyons, and that at Straf- burgh, the whole Mechamfm of our artificial Duck is expo fed to View \ my Dcfign being rather to demonfir ate the Manner of the Actions, than to Jhew a Machine, Perhaps fome Ladies, or ojme People, who only like the Outfide of Animals, had rather have