Sir Francis Bacon was one of the greatest scientific minds of the 17th Century. He encouraged the use of the scientific method which calls for experimentation and observation to reach a conclusion. He was one of the leaders of the Scientific Revolution. He is credited with saying “knowledge is power.” He also was involved in politics which got him sentenced to the Tower of London for several days because of his accepting bribes when he held a government position. This ended his political career. It did not stop his scientific career, however. One day he was riding in a horse carriage with his friend Dr. Witherbone, the king’s doctor. They were discussing ways to preserve food. At that time, the only way to preserve meat for months was to salt it. Bacon proposed that freezing the food might be another method. Since it was wintertime, Bacon decided at that moment to conduct an experiment on the theory. He had the carriage stop at a farm where he bought a chicken. He knew that if he left the chicken in his kitchen, it would soon decay and become inedible. So, he took its insides out and packed snow inside the chicken, he then put it in a bag and filled the bag with snow. He then buried the bag. Unfortunately, before he could determine the results of the experiment, he died of pneumonia which he caught from the snow. There’s a postscript to the story. In the years after the incident, people saw a ghostly plucked chicken flapping its wings and running around in circles. It would then disappear. This happened around twenty times. The last time involving a young couple who were making out when they saw the horrible hen.
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