In 1781, while serving as America's minister to France, Benjamin Franklin sat down and wrote an essay about making farts smell better.
The DUDE who harnessed lightning, helped birth a nation, and invented bifocals looked at the full menu of pressing 18th-century problems and landed on: What if flatulence smelled like perfume?
He never sent it to the academy he addressed it to. Butt he did send it to his friends, and luckily it survived to this day.
The Problem Franklin Refused to Ignore
Ben’s beef was simple. He'd noticed that when people were around others, they held their gas in, because letting it out was "offensive to the Company."
And while society appreciated the courtesy, Franklin pointed out that suppressing your body's natural urges could cause pain and even disease.
In other words: holding in your farts is bad for you. Ben Franklin said so.
His essay was technically a response to the Royal Academy of Brussels, which had posed some stuffy math question about geometric figures and bragged about its "practical value."
Franklin found this so useless that he decided to write a competing proposal about something he actually considered practical.
His pitch: What if scientists made some kind of pill that made farts smell like perfume?
He even imagined a future where hosting duties included asking your dinner guests whether they'd like their gas to smell like claret or champagne. Burgundy or Madeira. Lavender or lilly.
This DUDE was at every dinner party in your imagination and he was the most interesting one there.
The Science He Accidentally Got Right
Franklin never sent the essay to the academy. He sent it to a friend and eventually published it as a "bagatelle," which is French for "trifle," or roughly translated, "this is just for fun, don't @ me.”
History filed it under "charming founding father quirk" for the next 240 years.
Fast forward to today and the modern successor to that same Brussels academy actually answered him.
They brought in microbiome researchers and real scientists to address Ben Franklin's fart essay. It turns out he wasn't entirely wrong.
The smell of flatulence, they explained, mostly comes from gases like hydrogen sulfide, produced by gut bacteria. In theory, altering the microbiome through probiotics or diet could reduce those odors.
Franklin had no concept of gut bacteria in 1781. Butt he still landed in the same zip code as modern microbiology.
The man figured out electricity AND predicted the future of probiotic research through fart comedy. Meanwhile, most of us can't figure out what to have for dinner.
Finish What Franklin Started
Franklin understood that we cause ourselves real harm by pretending bodily functions don't exist. He was right in 1781, and he's still right today.
So when nature calls after your morning coffee, don't suffer through single-ply like the founding fathers. DUDE Wipes are bigger, wetter, and built for the full job.
Ben Franklin would have approved.
