Le Canard Digérateur
(1739)
The Canard Digérateur ("Digesting
Duck") was created by Jacques de Vaucanson in 1739,
who claimed the drawing above as an accurate depiction of
its inner workings. In Vaucanson's demonstration, the
mechanism consumed grain at one end,"digested" them
internally by a mechano-chemical process, and excreted
feces at the other. In fact, the grain was stored
internally and the fecal material was a pre-prepared mash
of bread crumbs, dyed green. The "Digesting Duck" is a
meme for the idea of Reductionism,
in which with sufficient knowledge a living system can be
reduced to an essentially mechanical one.