"A Letter to a Royal Academy" was composed in response to a call for
scientific papers from the
Royal Academy of Brussels. Franklin believed that the various academic societies in
Europe were increasingly pretentious and concerned with the impractical. Revealing his "bawdy, scurrilous side," Franklin responded with an essay suggesting that research and practical reasoning be undertaken into methods of improving the odor of human flatulence. Franklin never submitted the essay to the Brussels Academy, but enclosed it in a letter of 16 September 1783 to British philosopher and clergyman
Richard Price with whom Franklin had an ongoing correspondence, with the jocular suggestion that he should forward it to English chemist
Joseph Priestley, who was famed for his work on
gases, "who is apt to give himself Airs." Price did so, reporting back that "I convey’d this to Dr Priestley, and we have been entertained with the pleasantry of it and the ridicule it contains." Franklin's essay begins: The essay goes on to discuss the way different foods affect the odor of flatulence and to propose
scientific testing of farting. Franklin also suggests that scientists work to develop a drug, "wholesome and not disagreeable", which can be mixed with "common Food or Sauces" with the effect of rendering flatulence "not only inoffensive, but agreeable as Perfumes". The essay ends with a
pun saying that compared to the practical applications of this discussion, other sciences are "scarcely worth a
fart-hing." Copies of the essay were privately printed by Franklin at his
printing press in
Passy. In the 1960s, it was included in volume 32 of the
American Philosophical Society's
Papers of Benjamin Franklin. ==In modern times==