“The Lunatics, as they occasionally dubbed themselves, lived in an age when the magic of science gripped the popular imagination. Crowds flocked to demonstrations of newly discovered forces like “ELECTRICITY”?in the words of one advertisement, “that branch of Philosophy which engrosses so much Conversation everywhere.” Using strange-looking contraptions, showmen conjured “lightning” inside huge glass globes, or conducted electrical charges through volunteers’ bodies. One electrified boy was suspended sideways above a heap of metal shavings, which immediately shot up and clung to him; a man in Germany kissed a charged woman and caused “fire” to flash from her lips. Oddest of all, a French lecturer lined up several hundred Carthusian monks…” J.Y. Yeh reviews Jenny Uglow’s The Lunar Men: Five Friends Whose Curiosity Changed the World —Chemical BrothersVillage Voice)
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