Doctor Akakia
Satirical essay by Voltaire
Doctor Akakia (French: Histoire du Docteur Akakia et du Natif de St Malo, 1752-1753) is a satirical book of a very biting nature by Voltaire, directed against pretentious pedants of science in the person of Maupertuis, the President of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin. It so excited the anger of Frederick the Great, the patron of the Academy, that "[t]he Akakia was officially condemned in Prussia and burned by the public executioner on Christmas Eve of 1752".
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Doctor Akakia”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Fathomly is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Spotted a problem? Tell us.