Fart Flowers Friend Franklin?

As most of you know, I work for the Missouri Division of Youth Services, with boys who are in our facility for one reason or another.  At the time of this writing, my job kept me in close proximity with fourteen teenage boys.  Teenage boys, for time immemorial, have reveled in all the more disagreeable aspects of life.

They live to flatulate.

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Benjamin Franklin used his impressive intellect to find answers to many of the compelling issues of his day.  Most famously, he is credited with using a door key tied to a kite string to prove that lightning is actually electricity.

My readers may remember that he also exercised his brain to make jokes and write humorous essays, such as the one that has been blamed as the reason we now have to suffer through Daylight Saving Time.   In his defense, I don’t think he would have believed people were dumb enough to believe it was actually a good idea.

Ah, even his great mind couldn’t fathom the power of stupid people in large groups.  Are you listening, congress?

But there is one of his essays that was intended as a light-hearted jab, but that modern science should probably take a little more seriously.

The title of the paper started with the eye-catching, “Fart Proudly.”

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You see, Old Ben thought that the various academic societies of Europe were getting a little too big for their britches. 

He claimed that doctors, scientists and mathematicians wasted too much time finding answers to problems, but were not helping mankind in the process.  Of course, he said, work that does not benefit mankind is useless.  Franklin went on to suggest a problem, and he felt the solution would greatly enhance the lives of all humans.

He said, “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.

“That so retain’d contrary to Nature, it not only gives frequently great present Pain, but occasions future Diseases, such as habitual Cholics, Ruptures, Tympanies, &c. often destructive of the Constitution, & sometimes of Life itself.

“Were it not for the odiously offensive Smell accompanying such Escapes, polite People would probably be under no more Restraint in discharging such Wind in Company, than they are in spitting, or in blowing their Noses.

“My Prize Question therefore should be, To discover some Drug wholesome & not disagreable, to be mix’d with our common Food, or Sauces, that shall render the natural Discharges of Wind from our Bodies, not only inoffensive, but agreable as Perfumes.”

Yes, the incredibly smart Benjamin Franklin was talking about farting.

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Ben’s idea of a worthy use for the scientific method was for doctors and other educated folks to turn their minds toward fixing the bane of my existence.  You see, when the dozen-plus boys I work with feel the slightest need to pass gas, they try very hard to do so, and as loudly as possible.  This elicits chuckles or downright guffaws.  But when the smell wafts outward from the point of origin, it is met with overexaggerated expressions of pain and protestations of olfactory suffering.

Old Ben’s idea might have solved at least part of that.

Mr. Franklin wanted physicians to find a medicine that would make human flatulence smell better…a lot better.

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We, of course, can thank fairly modern medicine for simethicone, the main ingredient in Gas-X, a little pill that is guaranteed to reduce gas in the human digestive system.

Reduce.

Benjamin wanted to carry the idea a step further.  Well…more like a giant leap…and in a different direction. 

Franklin didn’t want to reduce the amount of gas people produce, he wanted doctors to find a chemical that would simply change the smell, to make it something more pleasant.

What a life-changing idea THAT was.

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Can you imagine sitting around a dinner table at a fine restaurant, eating shrimp, or onions, or beans, when your nose is suddenly delighted by the gentle odor of…roses.  A-a-a-ah.  Roses.

Then someone says, “Excuse me, I couldn’t hold it in.”

Shakespeare once said, “A rose by any other name still smells as sweet.”  I have to admit, a toot that smells like a rose would be a lot better than the ones my nose is assaulted by now.

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Can you imagine Phil Swift, the guy who advertises Flex Seal® and Flex Tape®, touting something that would pull off THAT magic trick, “Hey, friends!  Is your flatulence offensive?  Did your partner give you the boot because of a toot?  Do your buddies ask if something crawled up inside and died?  Well, never fear, I have the solution.  Now, from the makers of Flex Seal® and Flex Tape®, comes new Fresh Fart!

“Don’t pass gas, pass poot-tunias.  Add the delightful smell of wisteria to your wind.  Make your vapors into violets!  Give your farts flower-power!  Don’t flatulate, flower-idate!”

Now there’s a product I’d invest in.

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Yes, old Ben had a great idea, one with long-ranging potential.  You might say, it smells like success.  It might even help with one of the great riddles of life.  Why is it, when you are in a crowded place and somebody passes gas, one person says, “Man that stinks!” and everybody else has to take a sniff to verify it?

I’ve never been able to figure that one out.

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