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Benjamin Franklin (Franklin, Benjamin - Scientist): Electricity
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Benjamin Franklin (Franklin, Benjamin - Scientist) also shows up in the Retriever categories:
Benjamin Franklin (Franklin, Benjamin - Early) , and more.
Benjamin Franklin (Franklin, Benjamin - Early) , and more.
Franklin arrived in London to argue protractedly with officials about tax payments in Pennsylvania, but he spent much of his free time in discussion with scientists. Dr Fothergill, a Quaker herbalist, was helped by Franklin (always interested in medical matters) to distribute samples and information on herbal cures, but since he served royalty Franklin found him useful as a link. Franklin wrote a foreword to a pamphlet written by Dr William Hetherdon, who was pioneering inoculation against smallpox. He ... made a catheter (illustrated by the speaker), which became a basis for modern instruments. Often asked to use electricity for curing diseases (particularly those of women) Franklin once remarked that ‘fear of the apparatus often brought a cure’! Another friend was John Pringle, doctor to both king and army, who discovered typhoid and greatly reduced its incidence by separating the conduits for water and sewage.
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The American scientist and inventor Benjamin Franklin is remembered for his early work with electricity. Here's a page where you can learn about him--and the work of a couple of other "electric" scientists!
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Both Logan and Franklin were experimenters, with a keen interest in science and mathematics. They lived in a time of great inquiry and discovery, and they, like other fellow scientists, sought laws to explain the phenomena of the physical world. In short, they wanted to know how things worked and why things happened. Logan's curiosity focused on botany, mathematics and optics, while Franklin explored electricity, optics and a math mind-teaser of his own design, "Magic Squares."
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Any one of Franklin's many accomplishments would have been enough to make him famous. He organized the first library in America. He invented many things, including the lightning rod. Franklin amazed scientists throughout the world with his experiments in electricity.
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In 1746 Franklin had witnessed a public demonstration of electricity, and hisinterest was piqued. It is for his work in this subject that he became mostfamous. In the demonstration, a machine was used to generate static electricity which was stored in a Leyden jar (a water-filled bottle with a stopper through which a metal rod extended). People were instructed to join hands, forming a "circuit," and they simultaneously received a shock from the jar.
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In the late 1740s, Franklin was beginning to experiment with electricity including a spinning-wheel-like apparatus called an electrostatic machine that Franklin probably sent to Logan. The turning of the wheel generated enough friction to produce sparks that could shock. Franklin hoped that the shocks would be a therapy to help Logan regain some strength and movement in his "disorderd" side, paralyzed by a stroke.
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