The name of Cartesian Devil has sometimes been used inaccurately or with an analogous meaning.
In the popular European culture, during the 17th century, tales, sayings or stories concerning devils kept in bottles are common. The most popular example and the one with the greatest social repercussion is El Diablo Cojuelo –The Limping Devil (Vélez de Guevara, 1641). Sandonnini (1887) related an event about a diavolo in una ampolla and later G.P. (Fondato da Giovan Pietro Vieusseux, 1887) referred to the device as Diavoletto cartesiano.
After Magiotti had described the Cartesian Devil, in the following centuries there were those who thought that the machine had been discovered previously. As the oldest reference and with a different name, Vitruvius’Angibata (1552) is found. This author used the word to describe a hydraulic machine. Perrault (1684) thought that Vitruvius was alluding to a device described by Heron including petites figures que l’on fait courir dans des vases de verre. Perrault thought that the device was the same one described by Magiotti and Kircher. This inaccuracy is reproduced in several books and dictionaries (Baldo, 1612; Danetius, 1701, 1710; Maufras, 1848). A book by Krafft (1738), on which handwritten texts appeared, reflects this circumstance.
Guericke (1672) invented a barometer that he named Semper vivum o Perpetuum movile. Afterwards Jouch (1735) called it Cartesian Devil. This author did the same with Reiselio’s Stutgardian Experiment (1684).
Stocchetti (1705) depicted a solid little diver so as to explain and prove the existence of hydrostatic pressure.
Baumer (1780) described a sphere, a rock or a fossil the size of a walnut with Cartesian Devils, from what he said, depicted on its outside edge.
Also, subsequent to Magiotti’s explanation, other devices that look like little devils (but they are not) have appeared. Guyot (1800) made a small figure with an iron bar inside. Put in a glass bottle or placed on a table, the figure moves with the help of a magnet system.
Parrot (1805) stated that his students gave the name of Cartesian Devils to the matter glomeruli going upwards and downwards in the fermentation of wine, and surrounded by small air bubbles. Since there is no illustration by this author, one by Descartes (1637) is used, in which he described the operation of a device that was similar to Heron’s aeolipile, and which revealed the formation of gas particles.