Nikola Tesla illuminated by high voltage: "Showing the Inventor in the Effulgent Glory of Myriad Tongues of Electric Flame After He Has Saturated Himself with Electricity" (1894)

A drawing of Serbian-American electrical engineer Nikola Tesla illuminated by electrical discharges created by touching the high voltage terminal of his Tesla coil oscillator, from an illustration accompanying an 1894 interview with him in the New York World newspaper. A charismatic showman, during the period 1891-1894, Tesla gave a series of dramatic public demonstrations of the new technology of high-frequency, high-voltage electricity that made him internationally famous. He had discovered that the high-frequency current produced by his Tesla coil did not cause the sensation of electric shock that lower frequencies or direct current produced and, in fact, that currents lethal at lower frequencies could be passed through his body without apparent harm. During demonstrations, he would charge his body with hundreds of thousands of volts from his coils, causing a glowing corona discharge aura to surround his body, as shown here, and brush discharges to spark from his fingers. (Source: Arthur Brisbane, "Our Foremost Electrician" in New York World newspaper, Sunday, July 22, 1894, p 17. Public domain. Edited by Dr. Douglas J Lanska.)