Jacques Inaudi
Giacomo Inaudi, also known as Jacques Inaudi in France, was an Italian calculating prodigy.
He was born in Onorato, Piedmont, Italy. As a child he was a shepherd but showed aptitude for mental calculation. Inaudi's abilities attracted the interest of showmen and he toured around the world.
French scientists like Jean-Martin Charcot investigated his abilities, French astronomer Camille Flammarion praised him in strong terms, and Alfred Binet wrote a book on him. Inaudi would repeat the numbers he was given before he began his mental calculations.
Inaudi was referred to by the Nobel-prize-winning immunologist, Élie Metchnikoff, in his book . Metchnikoff regarded Inaudi as an example of a mutation, in the sense announced by the Dutch botanist Hugo de Vries, i.e., a sudden leap to a distinct new type that might be regarded as a new species. Metchnikoff argued that this kind of abrupt leap in evolution might explain how humans had emerged from apes and that Inaudi was proof that such a mutation was possible.
