04/12/2025
‘In his middle age , during the seventeen years he lodged for long periods at 36 Craven Street, just off the Strand, Benjamin Franklin became addicted to what he called his “air bath”. Every morning, he would strip naked, throw open the windows and pass half an hour reading or writing in the n**e, before dossing down refreshed for another hour or so, sometimes answering the door in the buff to startled postmen.
Franklin was a total immerser; he bathed in the cold morning breeze, just as he plunged into the freezing Thames, or wallowed in the company of London wags and wits, or, above all, absorbed himself in his scientific investigations. He was a theorist of everything – swimming, for example. As a boy, he taught himself the different strokes from Melchisédech Thévenot’s 𝘈𝘳𝘵 𝘥𝘦 𝘯𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘳, then devised flippers for his feet (later adopted by Jacques Cousteau) and paddles for his hands.
Each fresh experience presented itself to him as an opportunity for experiment. While thousands were weeping at George Whitefield’s outdoor meeting in Philadelphia, Franklin, instead of getting closer to hear the preacher better, walked away to reach the limit of Whitefield’s voice and so calculate the maximum number of people who could fit within the area – and therefore how many troops a Roman general could have addressed at a time (25,000, he thought).’
Ferdinand Mount on Benjamin Franklin’s scientific endeavours, from our latest issue.
Read here: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n22/ferdinand-mount/his-very-variousness
Image: Portrait of Benjamin Franklin by David Martin (1767) (The White House Historical Association)
