Benjamin Franklin Papers

To Benjamin Franklin from Jan Ingenhousz, [12 May 1774]

From Jan Ingenhousz

Abstract: Ingenhousz letterbook, Gemeente-Archief, Breda, Netherlands

[May 12, 1774]

I begg him send me soon his apology. I tell him the very words by which the Empress Queen promised me never to change any thing in my situation, and declared me quite a free man. Thus that I could reasonably expect to get leave to do what I will.2 I Sent a relation of my experiments upon the Torpedo to Sir John a year ago.3 I think the positive and negative electricity is not easily demonstrated by these fishes. A gentleman of Milan found that the circulation of juices could be seen in arundinacious plants and that there is a separate circulation between each nood.4

To Dr. B. Franklin at Mrs. Stephenson Cravenstreet Strand

[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]

2In his letter above of March 18 BF had promised to send his vindication, when he finished it, of his role in the affair of the Hutchinson letters, and had hoped that Ingenhousz might visit London in the spring. The Empress Queen was Maria Theresa.

3See above, XX, 433 n.

4I.e., each node of a reedy plant. The Milanese gentleman eludes us.

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