[Photos] 19th Century Japanese Scroll Depicts Raucous Fart Battles

Though some may try to deny it, everyone loves a good fart joke, and it seems the 19^th-century Japanese were no different.

Mental Floss shares the wonderful existence of He-Gassen, an Edo-period scroll dated to roughly the 1840s that translates to "the fart war." The work portrays an explosive gas battle between bum-baring men and women, both on horseback and foot.

In the illustrations, farts travel with enough force to blast through pieces of wood and cover impressive distances. A gallery of images from the scroll, available thanks to Waseda University, depicts scenes such as a picnic being obliterated by farts and even a poor cat getting caught in a gaseous emission.

Check out some excerpts from the, uh, fart scroll below, courtesy of Waseda:

[Photos via Waseda University]

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