Because of its sub­ject, this essay by Ben does­n’t often appear in his life sto­ry. Writ­ten in 1781, it poked fun at the Roy­al Acad­e­my of Brus­sels. Every year the acad­e­my posed a sci­en­tif­ic ques­tion and gave a prize to the sci­en­tist who could fig­ure out the answer.  Ben thought the ques­tions stuffy, pompous, and of lit­tle prac­ti­cal use, so he pro­posed his own.  Could the acad­e­my’s sci­en­tist dis­cov­er a drug that, when mixed with food, would remove the dis­agree­able odor of “human diges­tive gas­es”? The prize for such a dis­cov­ery, Ben said, would be the grat­i­tude of the entire world—far bet­ter than a “gold­en trophy.”

What com­fort can [sci­ence] be to a man who has whirl­winds in his bow­els?… Imag­ine the ease and com­fort every man liv­ing might feel…by dis­charg­ing freely the wind from his bow­els. Espe­cial­ly if it be con­vert­ed into per­fume.… Think of the gen­er­ous host who now may offer his guests the choice of claret or champagne,…then inquire whether they choose a musk, or lily, or wild rose scent­ed drug to per­fume their bod­i­ly odors. Sure­ly such lib­er­ty of ex-press­ing one’s scent-iments…is infi­nite­ly more impor­tance than a math­e­mat­i­cal prize ques­tion. Indeed, such prizes, when com­pared to the hap­pi­ness of a man who may fart proud­ly are hard­ly worth a fart-hing!

From Ben Franklin’s Almanac—Being a True Account of the Good Gen­tle­man’s Life by Can­dace Flem­ing (Page 30) Anne Schwartz Books—Atheneum, 2003.