JF Ptak Science Books: "The Body as Army and Navy", 1921--Mechanical Images of Sensory Capacity

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"The Body as Army and Navy", 1921--Mechanical Images of Sensory Capacity

JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post

These creative displays are found in Marion Florence Lansing's The Wonder of Life (volume 11, Supplementary), published in 1921. They represent a somewhat humanized-but-roboticized/automated approach to displaying he control of the senses, which seems to have been a developing style in the 1920's giving the popular cultural appearance of mechanical people (the term "robot" appearing for the first time in this same year in Karel Capek's play R.U.R.). The images also appear, appropriately enough, in the chapter titled "The Machinery of Our Bodies".