Last Updated on 5 years by Christopher G Mendla
Do you know who wrote a letter to a scientific academy about farting? The author was an important figure in our country’s history and even has his face on currency.
Do you know the answer?? Fart Proudly, also known as “A Letter to a Royal Academy about farting”, and “To the Royal Academy of Farting”. This was written by Ben Franklin when he was the Ambassador to France. Yep, one of our Founding Fathers, the guy who has a whole institute named after him in Philadelphia, the guy whose face adorns the lovely One Hundred Dollar Bill, wrote an article directed to the Royal Academy about Farts.
The letter was in response to a request for proposals from the Royal Academy. Franklin responded with a measure of wit that few men could muster then or now.
I have perused your late mathematical Prize Question, proposed in lieu of one in Natural Philosophy, for the ensuing year…Permit me then humbly to propose one of that sort for your consideration, and through you, if you approve it, for the serious Enquiry of learned Physicians, Chemists, &c. of this enlightened Age. It is universally well known, that in digesting our common food, there is created or produced in the bowels of human creatures, a great quantity of wind. That the permitting this air to escape and mix with the atmosphere, is usually offensive to the company, from the fetid smell that accompanies it. That all well-bred people therefore, to avoid giving such offence, forcibly restrain the efforts of nature to discharge that wind.
You can find the letter online or, better yet, you can purchase a bound copy. This is a wonderful book to leave on the coffee table when you have particularly stuffy guests visiting.
Good old Ben might have been a genius and one of the country’s founders but he did know how to loosen up.