Benjamin Franklin by Kathleen Krull

Author:Kathleen Krull
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2013-08-06T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

And More

WITH PHILADELPHIA on its way to becoming America’s leading city, Franklin was its genius-in-residence. Anyone who had a bright idea or project came to see him first.

In his journal, Ben began each day by writing, “What good shall I do this day?” Each night he ended by writing, “What good have I done today?”

While doing good for America, he kept trying to make himself useful in science. And so he theorized about and explored myriad subjects.

As befit his interest in health, many of his brainstorms were medical in nature. After his brother (John, not the tyrannical James) fell ill and requested a skinny tube that would help him urinate with less pain, Franklin invented the first flexible urinary catheter in America. He was the first to diagnose lead poisoning, a potentially fatal condition. He had noticed how badly his hands ached after handling hot lead type for printing. Then he noticed how many people in various occupations—printers, plumbers, painters—fell ill or sometimes lost the use of their hands. He connected the dots, identifying working with lead as the common factor among a wide range of ailments. His stoves, he always emphasized, were made of iron, not lead.

Sick people often came to him, and, a bit reluctantly, he agreed to treat them, employing electric shock therapy when he thought it might work. With stroke victims or those suffering other types of paralysis, Franklin had some small successes in restoring movement with electric shocks. But the effect never seemed to last, and at times he believed the patients felt better merely from coming to see him and getting some treatment. Franklin’s intuition about the curative power of electricity was right, of course. Electric shock treatment is still used today to treat severe depression; pacemakers implanted in patients with heart disease can give an electric shock that restores normal heart rhythm in a potentially fatal situation.

Franklin was among the first to recommend citrus fruit to prevent scurvy, which started with bleeding gums and loss of teeth and could eventually lead to death. Not until 1932 was there proof that scurvy was caused by a deficiency in vitamin C, which citrus fruit supplies. Meanwhile, also interested in refrigeration, Franklin urged keeping food as fresh as possible to cut down on food poisoning.

He was big on fresh air and clean hands. Years before germ theory was discovered in the 1870s by Louis Pasteur (who educated himself by reading Franklin’s book on electricity), Franklin postulated that tiny particles could enter a vulnerable body and cause disease. He started to compile notes for a whole treatise about contagion and how to prevent colds. He never finished it, but he shared his thoughts with friends.

He was so keen on health, he had helped to establish Pennsylvania Hospital in 1751—the first hospital in America. Until then, poor people who couldn’t take care of themselves were dumped at workhouses, getting no medical attention, and the mentally ill were often homeless. With twenty beds and just one doctor at first, the new hospital was open to all, rich or poor, treating both mental and physical illnesses.

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