Benjamin Franklin's greatest idea ... or a bit of a stinker?

On the inventiveness of Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), and its limits:

Nothing was beneath his curiosity: he once submitted a paper to the Royal Academy in Brussels recommending the search for a drug 'that shall render the natural discharges of wind from our bodies as perfume', believing this would do more for common good than the works of Descartes, Aristotle and Newton put together.

Source: The QI Book of the Dead (John Lloyd and John Mitchinson: 2009, page 45).
en.wikipedia.org...

A promising invention, or a waste of time?

I wonder if any other proposed inventions could rival this in its sheer directness, yet seemingly preposterous frivolity?

Hahahahaaa

Great idea AND a waste of time

Hahahahaaa

Thanks for the laugh

That was very needed



No Clue

Another politician full of hot air...but at least he was trying to make his hot air palatable.

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Or....
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Another malodorous tale from the same book, although in this case very romantic.

On the courtship of Salvadore Dali and Elena Diakonova, the violent Russian nymphomaniac, better known as Gala: "...who become his muse, business manager and chief tormentor. Though she was married to the writer Paul Eluard at the time, Dali immediately set out to seduce her. He concocted a malodorous paste from fish glue and cow dung, and daubed himself with it so that he smelt like the local ram. He then shaved his armpits, and stuck an orange geranium behind his ear. The strategy worked: they remained together as a couple until Gala's death in 1982". The couple stayed together from 1929-1982. Dali passed away in 1989, by then world famous. Well, still the happiest of the historical figures in the first chapter of The QI Book of the Dead, authored by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson (Faber and Faber, London: 2009, page 33).

So, fish glue and cow dung are the royal route to a lady's heart?
Yet, I can't find a tester for that fragrance at the pharmacy, despite loads of male deodorants and perfumes.

Imagine I find it!
I can just imagine the locker-room.
Spritz, spritz: Wow, I've got so much space all of a sudden.
"Gee, thanks guys! I'm going on a date you see".
All the other dudes thinking, flip this guy is nuts.

Incidentally Franklin and Epicurus, and some other figures discussed thus far were vegetarians or vegans.

Kidney stones and gaseousness are repeated maladies, as they seem to be for end-stage vegans today.

Perhaps my conclusions are going too far however, as many other maladies are in the book, and people died from them, or it wouldn't be "the book of the dead".

Imagine the male control group - OK guys take the pill.
Drink the beers, put on the AC/DC and light 'em up.
No ways, it smells like Chanel!
Yeah it smells like my bro's ex, and he's looking at me all suspiciously.
I like my toxic fumes of masculinity.
I'm never taking that again!

Although considering whet the industrializing world must have smelled like (especially the cities) in Franklin's time (consider the culminating "great stink" of London) is probably something few in the Western world can imagine today.
en.wikipedia.org...

Delightful as it may seem on the one hand, imagine the medical complications this could cause on the other hand.

Since my winds smell like Jasmine and Musk I need a powerful antihistamine daily.

Otherwise I pass wind and sneeze in one vicious cycle all day.

No thanks Benjamin Franklin!

Not totally without practical use though:

OK, five minutes and Her Majesty is coming to inspect the flower arrangements.

Did you guys smoke in here?

Quick, somebody pass a floral wind!
Actually I expect all three of you to put in some effort!

The subsequent "Hotel Hell" with Gordon Ramsey, I imagine.

This entire mattress smells like Geraniums, and that's why I brought my sleeping bag.

a reply to: halfoldman

Its too bad Franklin didn't last long as a vegetarian.
He started being vegetarian at 16, but had quit by his first time going by ship from Boston (page 35 of his autobiography).

www.gutenberg.org...

I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voyage from Boston, being becalm'd off Block Island, our people set about catching cod, and hauled up a great many. Hitherto I had stuck to my resolution of not eating animal food, and on this occasion consider'd, with my master Tryon, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of them had, or ever could do us any injury that might justify the slaughter. All this seemed very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great lover of fish, and, when this came hot out of the frying-pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanc'd some time between principle and inclination, till I recollected that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then thought I, "If you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you." So I din'd upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.

furthermore we can see it lasted a whole 2 years

1721 Writes ballads and peddles them, in printed form, in the streets; contributes, anonymously, to the "New England Courant," and temporarily edits that paper; becomes a free-thinker, and a vegetarian.
1723 Breaks his indenture and removes to Philadelphia; obtains employment in Keimer's printing-office; abandons vegetarianism.

a reply to: halfoldman
I have a friend who could use something like that. He could clear a room with his fart stench.

I just wonder, in the semiotic world of signs and signifiers involved in smells and their packaging (packaging and associated smells makes some perfumes worth thousands, while others are dirt cheap - although they may contain very similar ingredients), if farts smell like perfumes, then the perfume industry will have to find a new smell.

That is a perfume brand has an identity simply because it is "different", or alternative because of all the other less expensive or more expensive brands. Nobody really cares if Chanel really has different ingredients than You're the Fire (they might a bit, just an example). Well they certainly have different packaging - you can usually test the contents for free at most places that stock them.

It could ruin the entire perfume/deodorant/incense/room spray industry.

If farts smell like perfume and vice-versa, for example, who needs toilet spray?

It could save the ozone layer at the cost of thousands of jobs.

And what lady wants to wear perfume, if everybody at the party is thinking: flip, she's gassy tonight!

Nope, it would ruin the perfume industry.

You took our jobs Benjamin Franklin! Darn you, you took our jobs!