19. History’s Worst Flatulence?
Just as a jet engine turns fuel into a loud roar, farts are created by the conversion of undigested food in our lower colon into intestinal gas. That gas is blown through a narrow opening, the b-u-t-t-hole, which is surrounded by fatty flaps and folds. As the gas exits, those flaps and folds vibrate, and create a fleshy clamor – the fart. Over 99% of a fart does not smell. On average, a fart is 59% nitrogen, 21% hydrogen, 9% carbon dioxide, 7% methane, and 4% oxygen – all of them odorless. However, a tiny fraction – less than 1% – consists of stuff like ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and skatole (from the Greek skatos, meaning feces) that seriously stinks.
It stinks so bad, in fact, that people can smell those gas particles even when they comprise only 1 part per 100 million parts of air. History’s baddest – as in deadliest – fart was let go around the time of Passover in 44 AD, in Jerusalem, not long after the death of King Herod Agrippa. As thousands of Jews gathered to partake in the Passover feast and festivities, a Roman soldier stationed above the temple turned around, bared his butt, mooned the crowd, and cut a fart. The consequences were terrible.
