TY - JOUR T1 - Dr Ben Franklin and an unusual modern-day cure for recurrent pleuritis JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 32 LP - 33 DO - 10.3399/bjgp17X688705 VL - 67 IS - 654 AU - Mikaela I Poling AU - Craig R Dufresne AU - Robert L Chamberlain Y1 - 2017/01/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/67/654/32.abstract N2 - What should the astute physician do with a young, self-directed lung patient from the US, as preoccupied with diplomacy and the proper function of government as they are with objective scientific inquiry? In the counsel of that great US scientist-diplomat, Dr Benjamin Franklin, kick them outside … literally, and all the better if in the nude! But what sort of man was Franklin to listen to on such matters? Franklin’s advice, although not substantiated at the time and seemingly unorthodox (to say the very least), came from a learned and productive medical researcher and member of the Royal Medical Society of Paris, honorary member of the Medical Society of London, and member of several US medical societies.1His rationale for such clinical guidance served as the basis for modern indoor ventilation standards and the concept that respiratory diseases, from which he was a frequent sufferer as a youth,1 were often acquired from other people — not from breathing cold air, as was conventionally thought at the time.2 In a letter of 25 September 1773 to Thomas Percival, of London, Dr Franklin wrote in part: ‘From many years’ observations on myself and others, … ER -