Francis Bacon, the Elizabethan polymath, former Lord Chancellor of England, and Chronogram guest #1053, was brought low not by execution or theological controversy, but by an experiment. And a frozen chicken.

In March 1626, while riding through the snow near Highgate, the 65-year-old philosopher was struck by a practical question: could snow preserve flesh the way salt did? He stopped his carriage, had a hen purchased from a nearby cottage, and helped pack it with snow on the spot. It was exactly the sort of hands-on inquiry he had long championed in works like Novum Organum: knowledge gained through experiment rather than speculation.

Soon after, Bacon fell ill. Whether from exposure during the impromptu trial or simply from the hazards of a damp English winter, he developed a severe respiratory infection, likely pneumonia. He was taken to the home of the Earl of Arundel, where his condition worsened. On April 9, 1626, one of the leading architects of the empirical method was dead.

The story carries an undeniable irony. Bacon had spent his career urging scholars to interrogate nature directly. In a final letter written from his sickbed, he noted with satisfaction that the preservation experiment had “succeeded excellently well.” The snow had worked. The philosopher had not.

Learn more: The New York Review

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