young dog, well known to me, who had never had connection with a
bitch, but was always in the society of its father, once met the
latter directly after the elder dog had been with a bitch. He
immediately endeavored to behave toward the elder dog, in spite
of angry repulses, exactly as a dog behaves toward a bitch in
heat. The messages received by the sense of smell were
sufficiently urgent not only to set the sexual mechanism in
action, but to overcome the experiences of a lifetime. There is
an interesting chapter on the sense of smell in the mental life
of the dog in Giessler's _Psychologie des Geruches_, 1894,
Chapter XI, Passy (in the appendix to his memoir on olfaction,
_L'Année Psychologique_, 1895) gives the result of some
interesting experiments as to the effects of perfume on dogs;
civet and castoreum were found to have the most powerfully
exciting effect.

The influences of smell are equally omnipotent in the sexual life
of many insects. Thus, Féré has found that in cockchafers sexual
coupling failed to take place when the antennæ, which are the
organs of smell, were removed; he also found that males, after
they had coupled with females, proved sexually attractive to
other males (_Comptes Rendus de la Société de Biologie_, May 21,
1898). Féré similarly found that, in a species of _Bombyx_, males
after contact with females sometimes proved attractive to other
males, although no abnormal relationships followed. (_Soc. de
Biol_, July 30, 1898.)

With the advent of the higher apes, and especially of man, all this has
been changed. The sense of smell, indeed, still persists universally and
it is still also exceedingly delicate, though often neglected.[25] It is,
moreover, a useful auxiliary in the exploration of the external world,
for, in contrast to the very few sensations furnished to us by touch and
by taste, we are acquainted with a vast number of smells, though the
information they give us is frequently vague. An experienced perfumer,
says Piesse, will have two hundred odors in his laboratory and can
distinguish them all. To a sensitive nose nearly everything smells. Passy
goes so far as to state that he has "never met with any object that is
really inodorous when one pays attention to it, not even excepting glass,"
and, though we can scarcely accept this statement absolutely,--especially
in view of the careful experiments of Ayrton, which show that, contrary
to a common belief, metals when perfectly clean and free from traces of
contact with the skin or with salt solutions have no smell,--odor is still
extremely widely diffused. This is especially the case in hot countries,
and the experiments of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition on the
sense of smell of the Papuans were considerably impeded by the fact that
at Torres Straits everything, even water, seemed to have a smell. Savages
are often accused more or less justly of indifference to bad odors. They
are very often, however, keenly alive to the significance of smells and
their varieties, though it does not appear that the sense of smell is
notably more developed in savage than in civilized peoples. Odors also
continue to play a part in the emotional life of man, more especially in
hot countries. Nevertheless both in practical life and in emotional life,
in science and in art, smell is, at the best, under normal conditions,
merely an auxiliary. If the sense of smell were abolished altogether the
life of mankind would continue as before, with little or no sensible
modification, though the pleasures of life, and especially of eating and
drinking, would be to some extent diminished.

In New Ireland, Duffield remarks (_Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, 1886, p. 118), the natives have a very keen sense of
smell; unusual odors are repulsive to them, and "carbolic acid
drove them wild."

The New Caledonians, according to Foley (_Bulletin de la Société
d'Anthropologie_, November 6, 1879), only like the smells of meat
and fish which are becoming "high," like _popoya_, which smells
of fowl manure, and _kava_, of rotten eggs. Fruits and vegetables
which are beginning to go bad seem the best to them, while the
fresh and natural odors which we prefer seem merely to say to
them: "We are not yet eatable." (A taste for putrefying food,
common among savages, by no means necessarily involves a distaste
for agreeable scents, and even among Europeans there is a
widespread taste for offensively smelling and putrid foods,
especially cheese and game.)

The natives of Torres Straits were carefully examined by Dr. C.S.
Myers with regard to their olfactory acuteness and olfactory
preferences. It was found that acuteness was, if anything,
slightly greater than among Europeans. This appeared to be
largely due to the careful attention they pay to odors. The
resemblances which they detected among different odorous
substances were frequently found to rest on real chemical
affinities. The odors they were observed to dislike most
frequently were asafoetida, valerianic acid, and civet, the last
being regarded as most repulsive of all on account of its
resemblance to fæcal odor, which these people regard with intense
disgust. Their favorite odors were musk, thyme, and especially
violet. (_Report of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to
Torres Straits_, vol. ii, Part II, 1903.)

In Australia Lumholtz (_Among Cannibals_, p. 115) found that the
blacks had a keener sense of smell than he possessed.

In New Zealand the Maoris, as W. Colenso shows, possessed,
formerly at all events, a very keen sense of smell or else were
very attentive to smell, and their taste as regarded agreeable
and disagreeable odors corresponded very closely to European
taste, although it must be added that some of their common
articles of food possessed a very offensive odor. They are not
only sensitive to European perfumes, but possessed various
perfumes of their own, derived from plants and possessing a
pleasant, powerful, and lasting odor; the choicest and rarest was
the gum of the _taramea_ (_Aciphylla Colensoi_), which was
gathered by virgins after the use of prayers and charms. Sir
Joseph Banks noted that Maori chiefs wore little bundles of
perfumes around their necks, and Cook made the same observation
concerning the young women. References to the four chief Maori
perfumes are contained in a stanza which is still often hummed to
express satisfaction, and sung by a mother to her  child:--

"My little neck-satchel of sweet-scented moss,
My little neck-satchel of fragrant fern,
My little neck-satchel of odoriferous gum,
My sweet-smelling neck-locket of sharp-pointed _taramea_."

In the summer season the sleeping houses of Maori chiefs were
often strewed with a large, sweet-scented, flowering grass of
powerful odor. (W. Colenso, _Transactions of the New Zealand
Institute_, vol. xxiv, reprinted in _Nature_, November 10, 1892.)

Javanese women rub themselves with a mixture of chalk and strong
essence which, when rubbed off, leaves a distinct perfume on the
body. (Stratz, _Die Frauenkleidung_, p. 84.)

The Samoans, Friedländer states (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_,
1899, p. 52), are very fond of fragrant and aromatic odors. He
gives a list of some twenty odorous plants which they use, more
especially as garlands for the head and neck, including
ylang-ylang and gardenia; he remarks that of one of these plants
(cordyline) he could not himself detect the odor.

The Nicobarese, Man remarks (_Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, 1889, p. 377), like the natives of New Zealand,
particularly dislike the smell of carbolic acid. Both young men
and women are very partial to scents; the former say they find
their use a certain passport to the favor of their wives, and
they bring home from the jungle the scented leaves of a certain
creeper to their sweethearts and wives.

Swahili women devote much attention to perfuming themselves. When
a woman wishes to make herself desirable she anoints herself all
over with fragrant ointments, sprinkles herself with rose-water,
puts perfume into her clothes, strews jasmine flowers on her bed
as well as binding them round her neck and waist, and smokes
_ûdi_, the perfumed wood of the aloe; "every man is glad when his
wife smells of _ûdi_" (Velten, _Sitten und Gebraüche der
Suaheli_, pp. 212-214).


FOOTNOTES:

[24] Emile Yung, "Le Sens Olfactif de l'Escargot (Helix Pomata),"
_Archives de Psychologie_, November, 1903.

[25] The sensitiveness of smell in man generally exceeds that of chemical
reaction or even of spectral analysis; see Passy, _L'Année Psychologique_,
second year, 1895, p. 380.




II.

Rise of the Study of Olfaction--Cloquet--Zwaardemaker--The Theory of
Smell--The Classification of Odors--The Special Characteristics of
Olfactory Sensation in Man--Smell as the Sense of Imagination--Odors as
Nervous Stimulants--Vasomotor and Muscular Effects--Odorous Substances as
Drugs.


During the eighteenth century a great impetus was given to the
physiological and psychological study of the senses by the philosophical
doctrines of Locke and the English school generally which then prevailed
in Europe. These thinkers had emphasized the immense importance of the
information derived through the senses in building up the intellect, so
that the study of all the sensory channels assumed a significance which it
had never possessed before. The olfactory sense fully shared in the
impetus thus given to sensory investigation. At the beginning of the
nineteenth century a distinguished French physician, Hippolyte Cloquet, a
disciple of Cabanis, devoted himself more especially to this subject.
After publishing in 1815 a preliminary work, he issued in 1821 his
_Osphrésiologie, ou Traité des odeurs, du sens et des organes de
l'Olfaction_, a complete monograph on the anatomy, physiology, psychology,
and pathology of the olfactory organ and its functions, and a work that
may still be consulted with profit, if indeed it can even yet be said to
be at every point superseded. After Cloquet's time the study of the sense
of smell seems to have fallen into some degree of discredit. For more than
half a century no important progress was made in this field. Serious
investigators seemed to have become shy of the primitive senses generally,
and the subject of smell was mainly left to those interested in "curious"
subjects. Many interesting observations were, however, incidentally made;
thus Laycock, who was a pioneer in so many by-paths of psychology and
anthropology, showed a special interest in the olfactory sense, and
frequently touched on it in his _Nervous Diseases of Women_ and
elsewhere. The writer who more than any other has in recent years restored
the study of the sense of smell from a by-path to its proper position as a
highway for investigation is without doubt Professor Zwaardemaker, of
Utrecht. The invention of his first olfactometer in 1888 and the
appearance in 1895 of his great work _Die Physiologie des Geruchs_ have
served to give the physiology of the sense of smell an assured status and
to open the way anew for much fruitful investigation, while a number of
inquirers in many countries have had their attention directed to the
elucidation of this sense.

Notwithstanding, however, the amount of work which has been done in this
field during recent years, it cannot be said that the body of assured
conclusions so far reached is large. The most fundamental principles of
olfactory physiology and psychology are still somewhat vague and
uncertain. Although sensations of smell are numerous and varied, in this
respect approaching the sensations of vision and hearing, smell still
remains close to touch in the vagueness of its messages (while the most
sensitive of the senses, remarks Passy, it is the least precise), the
difficulty of classifying them, the impossibility of so controlling them
as to found upon them any art. It seems better, therefore, not to attempt
to force the present study of a special aspect of olfaction into any
general scheme which may possibly not be really valid.

The earliest and most general tendency in regard to the theory of
smell was to regard it as a kind of chemical sense directly
stimulated by minute particles of solid substance. A vibratory
theory of smell, however, making it somewhat analogous to
hearing, easily presents itself. When I first began the study of
physiology in 1881, a speculation of this kind presented itself
to my mind. Long before Philipp von Walther, a professor at
Landshut, had put forward a dynamic theory of olfaction
(_Physiologie des Menschen_, 1807-8, vol. ii, p. 278). "It is a
purely dynamic operation of the odorous substance in the
olfactory organ," he stated. Odor is conveyed by the air, he
believed, in the same way as heat. It must be added that his
reasons for this theory will not always bear examination. More
recently a similar theory has been seriously put forward in
various quarters. Sir William Ramsay tentatively suggested such a
theory (_Nature_, vol. xxv, p. 187) in analogy with light and
sound. Haycraft (_Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh_,
1883-87, and _Brain_, 1887-88), largely starting from
Mendelieff's law of periodicity, similarly sought to bring smell
into line with the higher senses, arguing that molecules with the
same vibration have the same smell. Rutherford (_Nature_, August
11, 1892, p. 343), attaching importance to the evidence brought
forward by von Brunn showing that the olfactory cells terminate
in very delicate short hairs, also stated his belief that the
different qualities of smell result from differences in the
frequency and form of the vibrations initiated by the action of
the chemical molecules on these olfactory cells, though he
admitted that such a conception involved a very subtle conception
of molecular vibration. Vaschide and Van Melle (Paris Academy of
Sciences, December 26, 1899) have, again, argued that smell is
produced by rays of short wave-lengths, analogous to light-rays,
Röntgen rays, etc. Chemical action is however, a very important
factor in the production of odors; this has been well shown by
Ayrton (_Nature_, September 8, 1898). We seem to be forced in the
direction of a chemico-vibratory theory, as pointed out by
Southerden (_Nature_, March 26, 1903), the olfactory cells being
directly stimulated, not by the ordinary vibrations of the
molecules, but by the agitations accompanying chemical changes.

The vibratory hypothesis of the action of odors has had some
influence on the recent physiologists who have chiefly occupied
themselves with olfaction. "It is probable," Zwaardemaker writes
(_L'Année Psychologique_, 1898), "that aroma is a
physico-chemical attribute of the molecules"; he points out that
there is an intimate analogy between color and odor, and remarks
that this analogy leads us to suppose in an aroma ether
vibrations of which the period is determined by the structure of
the molecule.

Since the physiology of olfaction is yet so obscure it is not
surprising that we have no thoroughly scientific classification
of smells, notwithstanding various ambitious attempts to reach a
classification. The classification adopted by Zwaardemaker is
founded on the ancient scheme of Linnæus, and may here be
reproduced:--

I. Ethereal odors (chiefly esters; Rimmel's fruity series).

II. Aromatic odors (terpenes, camphors, and the spicy,
herbaceous, rosaceous, and almond series; the chemical types are
well determined: cineol, eugenol, anethol, geraniol,
benzaldehyde).

III. The balsamic odors (chiefly aldehydes, Rimmel's jasmin,
violet, and balsamic series, with the chemical types: terpineol,
ionone, vanillin).

IV. The ambrosiacal odors (ambergris and musk).

V. The alliaceous odors, with the cacodylic group (asafoetida,
ichthyol, etc.).

VI. Empyreumatic odors.

VII. Valerianaceous odors (Linnæus's _Odores hircini_, the capryl
group, largely composed of sexual odors).

VIII. Narcotic odors (Linnæus's _Odores tetri_).

IX. Stenches.

A valuable and interesting memoir, "Revue Générale sur les
Sensations Olfactives," by J. Passy, the chief French authority
on this subject, will be found in the second volume of _L'Année
Psychologique_, 1895. In the fifth issue of the same year-book
(for 1898) Zwaardemaker presents a full summary of his work and
views, "Les Sensations Olfactives, leurs Combinaisons et leurs
Compensations." A convenient, but less authoritative, summary of
the facts of normal and pathological olfaction will be found in a
little volume of the "Actualités Médicales" series by Dr. Collet,
_L'Odorat et ses Troubles_, 1904. In a little book entitled
_Wegweiser zu einer Psychologie des Geruches_ (1894) Giessler has
sought to outline a psychology of smell, but his sketch can only
be regarded as tentative and provisional.

At the outset, nevertheless, it seems desirable that we should at least
have some conception of the special characteristics which mark the great
and varied mass of sensations reaching the brain through the channel of
the olfactory organ. The main special character of olfactory images seems
to be conditioned by the fact that they are intermediate in character
between those of touch or taste and those of sight or sound, that they
have much of the vagueness of the first and something of the richness and
variety of the second. Æsthetically, also, they occupy an intermediate
position between the higher and the lower senses.[26] They are, at the
same time, less practically useful than either the lower or the higher
senses. They furnish us with a great mass of what we may call
by-sensations, which are of little practical use, but inevitably become
intimately mixed with the experiences of life by association and thus
acquire an emotional significance which is often very considerable. Their
emotional force, it may well be, is connected with the fact that their
anatomical seat is the most ancient part of the brain. They lie in a
remote almost disused storehouse of our minds and show the fascination or
the repulsiveness of all vague and remote things. It is for this reason
that they are--to an extent that is remarkable when we consider that they
are much more precise than touch sensations--subject to the influence of
emotional associations. The very same odor may be at one moment highly
pleasant, at the next moment highly unpleasant, in accordance with the
emotional attitude resulting from its associations. Visual images have no
such extreme flexibility; they are too definite to be so easily
influenced. Our feelings about the beauty of a flower cannot oscillate so
easily or so far as may our feelings about the agreeableness of its odor.
Our olfactory experiences thus institute a more or less continuous series
of by-sensations accompanying us through life, of no great practical
significance, but of considerable emotional significance from their
variety, their intimacy, their associational facility, their remote
ancestral reverberations through our brains.

It is the existence of these characteristics--at once so vague and so
specific, so useless and so intimate--which led various writers to
describe the sense of smell as, above all others, the sense of
imagination. No sense has so strong a power of suggestion, the power of
calling up ancient memories with a wider and deeper emotional
reverberation, while at the same time no sense furnishes impressions which
so easily change emotional color and tone, in harmony with the recipient's
general attitude. Odors are thus specially apt both to control the
emotional life and to become its slaves. With the use of incense religions
have utilized the imaginative and symbolical virtues of fragrance. All the
legends of the saints have insisted on the odor of sanctity that exhales
from the bodies of holy persons, especially at the moment of death. Under
the conditions of civilization these primitive emotional associations of
odor tend to be dispersed, but, on the other hand, the imaginative side of
the olfactory sense becomes accentuated, and personal idiosyncrasies of
all kinds tend to manifest themselves in the sphere of smell.

Rousseau (in _Emile_, Bk. II) regarded smell as the sense of the
imagination. So, also, at an earlier period, it was termed
(according to Cloquet) by Cardano. Cloquet frequently insisted on
the qualities of odors which cause them to appeal to the
imagination; on their irregular and inconstant character; on
their power of intoxicating the mind on some occasions; on the
curious individual and racial preferences in the matter of odors.
He remarked on the fact that the Persians employed asafoetida as
a seasoning, while valerian was accounted a perfume in antiquity.
(Cloquet, _Osphrésiologie_, pp. 28, 45, 71, 112.) It may be
added, as a curious example familiar to most people of the
dependence of the emotional tone of a smell on its associations,
that, while the exhalations of other people's bodies are
ordinarily disagreeable to us, such is not the case with our own;
this is expressed in the crude and vigorous dictum of the
Elizabethan poet, Marston, "Every man's dung smell sweet i' his
own nose." There are doubtless many implications, moral as well
as psychological, in that statement.

The modern authorities on olfaction, Passy and Zwaardemaker, both
alike insist on the same characteristics of the sense of smell:
its extreme acuity and yet its vagueness. "We live in a world of
odor," Zwaardemaker remarks (_L'Année Psychologique_, 1898, p.
203), "as we live in a world of light and of sound. But smell
yields us no distinct ideas grouped in regular order, still less
that are fixed in the memory as a grammatical discipline.
Olfactory sensations awake vague and half-understood perceptions,
which are accompanied by very strong emotion. The emotion
dominates us, but the sensation which was the cause of it remains
unperceived." Even in the same individual there are wide
variations in the sensitiveness to odors at different times, more
especially as regards faint odors; Passy (_L'Année
Psychologique_, 1895, p. 387) brings forward some observations on
this point.

Maudsley noted the peculiarly suggestive power of odors; "there
are certain smells," he remarked, "which never fail to bring back
to me instantly and visibly scenes of my boyhood"; many of us
could probably say the same. Another writer (E. Dillon, "A
Neglected Sense," _Nineteenth Century_, April, 1894) remarks that
"no sense has a stronger power of suggestion."

Ribot has made an interesting investigation as to the prevalence
and nature of the emotional memory of odors (_Psychology of the
Emotions_, Chapter XI). By "emotional memory" is meant the
spontaneous or voluntary revivability of the image, olfactory or
other. (For the general question, see an article by F. Pillon,
"La Mémoire Affective, son Importance Théorique et Pratique,"
_Revue Philosophique_, February, 1901; also Paulhan, "Sur la
Mémoire Affective," _Revue Philosophique_, December, 1902 and
January, 1903.) Ribot found that 40 per cent. of persons are
unable to revive any such images of taste or smell; 48 per cent,
could revive some; 12 per cent, declared themselves capable of
reviving all, or nearly all, at pleasure. In some persons there
is no necessary accompanying revival of visual or tactile
representations, but in the majority the revived odor ultimately
excites a corresponding visual image. The odors most frequently
recalled were pinks, musk, violets, heliotrope, carbolic acid,
the smell of the country, of grass, etc. Piéron (_Revue
Philosophique_, December, 1902) has described the special power
possessed by vague odors, in his own case, of evoking ancient
impressions.

Dr. J.N. Mackenzie (_American Journal of the Medical Sciences_,
January, 1886) considers that civilization exerts an influence in
heightening or encouraging the influence of olfaction as it
affects our emotions and judgment, and that, in the same way, as
we ascend the social scale the more readily our minds are
influenced and perhaps perverted by impressions received through
the sense of smell.

Odors are powerful stimulants to the whole nervous system, causing, like
other stimulants, an increase of energy which, if excessive or prolonged,
leads to nervous exhaustion. Thus, it is well recognized in medicine that
the aromatics containing volatile oils (such as anise, cinnamon,
cardamoms, cloves, coriander, and peppermint) are antispasmodics and
anæsthetics, and that they stimulate digestion, circulation, and the
nervous system, in large doses producing depression. The carefully
arranged plethysmographic experiments of Shields, at the Johns Hopkins
University, have shown that olfactory sensations, by their action on the
vasomotor system, cause an increase of blood in the brain and sometimes in
addition stimulation of the heart; musk, wintergreen, wood violet, and
especially heliotrope were found to act strongly in these ways.[27]

Féré's experiments with the dynamometer and the ergograph have greatly
contributed to illustrate the stimulating effects of odors. Thus, he found
that smelling musk suffices to double muscular effort. With a number of
odorous substances he has found that muscular work is temporarily
heightened; when taste stimulation was added the increase of energy,
notably when using lemon was "colossal." A kind of "sensorial
intoxication" could be produced by the inhalation of odors and the whole
system stimulated to greater activity; the visual acuity was increased,
and electric and general excitability heightened.[28] Such effects may be
obtained in perfectly healthy persons, though both Shields and Féré have
found that in highly nervous persons the effects are liable to be much
greater. It is doubtless on this account that it is among civilized
peoples that attention is chiefly directed to perfumes, and that under the
conditions of modern life the interest in olfaction and its study has been
revived.

It is the genuinely stimulant qualities of odorous substances which led to
the widespread use of the more potent among them by ancient physicians,
and has led a few modern physicians to employ them still. Thus, vanilla,
according to Eloy, deserves to be much more frequently used
therapeutically than it is, on account of its excitomotor properties; he
states that its qualities as an excitant of sexual desire have long been
recognized and that Fonssagrives used to prescribe it for sexual
frigidity.[29]


FOOTNOTES:

[26] The opinions of psychologists concerning the æsthetic significance of
smell, not on the whole very favorable, are brought together and discussed
by J.V. Volkelt, "Der Æsthetische Wert der niederen Sinne," _Zeitschrift
für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane_, 1902, ht. 3.

[27] T.E. Shields, "The Effect of Odors, etc., upon the Blood-flow,"
_Journal of Experimental Medicine_, vol. i, November, 1896. In France, O.
Henry and Tardif have made somewhat similar experiments on respiration and
circulation. See the latter's _Les Odeurs et les Parfums_, Chapter III.

[28] Féré, _Sensation et Mouvement_, Chapter VI; ib., _Comptes Rendus de
la Société de Biologie_, November 3, December 15 and 22, 1900.

[29] Eloy, art. "Vanille," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences
Médicales_.




III.

The Specific Body Odors of Various Peoples--The Negro, etc.--The
European--The Ability to Distinguish Individuals by Smell--The Odor of
Sanctity--The Odor of Death--The Odors of Different Parts of the Body--The
Appearance of Specific Odors at Puberty--The Odors of Sexual
Excitement--The Odors of Menstruation--Body Odors as a Secondary Sexual
Character--The Custom of Salutation by Smell--The Kiss--Sexual Selection
by Smell--The Alleged Association between Size of Nose and Sexual
Vigor--The Probably Intimate Relationship between the Olfactory and
Genital Spheres--Reflex Influences from the Nose--Reflex Influences from
the Genital Sphere--Olfactory Hallucinations in Insanity as Related to
Sexual States--The Olfactive Type--The Sense of Smell in Neurasthenic and
Allied States--In Certain Poets and Novelists--Olfactory Fetichism--The
Part Played by Olfaction in Normal Sexual Attraction--In the East,
etc.--In Modern Europe--The Odor of the Armpit and its Variations--As a
Sexual and General Stimulant--Body Odors in Civilization Tend to Cause
Sexual Antipathy unless some Degree of Tumescence is Already Present--The
Question whether Men or Women are more Liable to Feel Olfactory
Influences--Women Usually more Attentive to Odors--The Special Interest in
Odors Felt by Sexual Inverts.


In approaching the specifically sexual aspect of odor in the human species
we may start from the fundamental fact--a fact we seek so far as possible
to disguise in our ordinary social relations--that all men and women are
odorous. This is marked among all races. The powerful odor of many, though
not all, negroes is well known; it is by no means due to uncleanly habits,
and Joest remarks that it is even increased by cleanliness, which opens
the pores of the skin; according to Sir H. Johnston, it is most marked in
the armpits and is stronger in men than in women. Pruner Bey describes it
as "ammoniacal and rancid; it is like the odor of the he-goat." The odor
varies not only individually, but according to the tribe; Castellani
states that the negress of the Congo has merely a slight "_goût de
noisette_" which is agreeable rather than otherwise. Monbuttu women,
according to Parke, have a strong Gorgonzola perfume, and Emin told Parke
that he could distinguish the members of different tribes by their
characteristic odor. In the same way the Nicobarese, according to Man, can
distinguish a member of each of the six tribes of the archipelago by
smell. The odor of Australian blacks is less strong than that of negroes
and has been described as of a phosphoric character. The South American
Indians, d'Orbigny stated, have an odor stronger than that of Europeans,
though not as strong as most negroes; it is marked, Latcham states, even
among those who, like the Araucanos, bathe constantly. The Chinese have a
musky odor. The odor of many peoples is described as being of garlic.[30]

A South Sea Islander, we are told by Charles de Varigny, on coming to
Sydney and seeing the ladies walking about the streets and apparently
doing nothing, expressed much astonishment, adding, with a gesture of
contempt, "and they have no smell!" It is by no means true, however, that
Europeans are odorless. They are, indeed, considerably more odorous than
are many other races,--for instance, the Japanese,--and there is doubtless
some association between the greater hairiness of Europeans and their
marked odor, since the sebaceous glands are part of the hair apparatus. A
Japanese anthropologist, Adachi, has published an interesting study on the
odor of Europeans,[31] which he describes as a strong and pungent
smell,--sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter,--of varying strength in
different individuals, absent in children and the aged, and having its
chief focus in the armpits, which, however carefully they are washed,
immediately become odorous again. Adachi has found that the sweat-glands
are larger in Europeans than in the Japanese, among whom a strong personal
odor is so uncommon that "armpit stink" is a disqualification for the
army. It is certainly true that the white races smell less strongly than
most of the dark races, odor seeming to be correlated to some extent with
intensity of pigmentation, as well as with hairiness; but even the most
scrupulously clean Europeans all smell. This fact may not always be
obvious to human nostrils, apart from intimate contact, but it is well
known to dogs, to whom their masters are recognizable by smell. When Hue
traveled in Tibet in Chinese disguise he was not detected by the natives,
but the dogs recognized him as a foreigner by his smell and barked at him.
Many Chinese can tell by smell when a European has been in a room.[32]
There are, however, some Europeans who can recognize and distinguish their
friends by smell. The case has been recorded of a man who with bandaged
eyes could recognize his acquaintances, at the distance of several paces,
the moment they entered the room. In another case a deaf and blind mute
woman in Massachusetts knew all her acquaintances by smell, and could sort
linen after it came from the wash by the odor alone. Governesses have been
known to be able when blindfolded to recognize the ownership of their
pupil's garments by smell; such a case is known to me. Such odor is
usually described as being agreeable, but not one person in fifty, it is
stated, is able to distinguish it with sufficient precision to use it as a
method of recognition. Among some races, however this aptitude would
appear to be better developed. Dr. C.S. Myers at Sarawak noted that his
Malay boy sorted the clean linen according to the skin-odor of the
wearer.[33] Chinese servants are said to do the same, as well as
Australians and natives of Luzon.[34]

Although the distinctively individual odor of most persons is not
sufficiently marked to be generally perceptible, there are cases
in which it is more distinct to all nostrils. The most famous
case of this kind is that of Alexander the Great, who, according
to Plutarch, exhaled so sweet an odor that his tunics were soaked
with aromatic perfume (_Convivalium Disputationum_, lib. I,
quest. 6). Malherbe, Cujas, and Haller are said to have diffused
a musky odor. The agreeable odor of Walt Whitman has been
remarked by Kennedy and others. The perfume exhaled by many holy
men and women, so often noted by ancient writers (discussed by
Görres in the second volume of his _Christliche Mystik_) and
which has entered into current phraseology as a merely
metaphorical "odor of sanctity," was doubtless due, as Hammond
first pointed out, to abnormal nervous conditions, for it is well
known that such conditions affect the odor, and in insanity, for
instance, the presence is noted of bodily odors which have
sometimes even been considered of diagnostic importance. J.B.
Friedreich, _Allgemeine Diagnostik der Psychischen Krankheiten_,
second edition, 1832, pp. 9-10, quotes passages from various
authors on this point, which he accepts; various writers of more
recent date have made similar observations.

The odor of sanctity was specially noted at death, and was
doubtless confused with the _odor mortis_, which frequently
precedes death and by some is regarded as an almost certain
indication of its approach. In the _British Medical Journal_, for
May and June, 1898, will be found letters from several
correspondents substantiating this point. One of these
correspondents (Dr. Tuckey, of Tywardwreath, Cornwall) mentions
that he has in Cornwall often seen ravens flying over houses in
which persons lay dying, evidently attracted by a characteristic
odor.

It must be borne in mind, however, that, while every person has, to a
sensitive nose, a distinguishing odor, we must regard that odor either as
but one of the various sensations given off by the body, or else as a
combination of two or more of these emanations. The body in reality gives
off a number of different odors. The most important of these are: (1) the
general skin odor, a faint, but agreeable, fragrance often to be detected
on the skin even immediately after washing; (2) the smell of the hair and
scalp; (3) the odor of the breath; (4) the odor of the armpit; (5) the
odor of the feet; (6) the perineal odor; (7) in men the odor of the
preputial smegma; (8) in women the odor of the mons veneris, that of
vulvar smegma, that of vaginal mucus, and the menstrual odor. All these
are odors which may usually be detected, though sometimes only in a very
faint degree, in healthy and well-washed persons under normal conditions.
It is unnecessary here to take into account the special odors of various
secretions and excretions.[35]

It is a significant fact, both as regards the ancestral sexual connections
of the body odors and their actual sexual associations to-day, that, as
Hippocrates long ago noted, it is not until puberty that they assume their
adult characteristics. The infant, the adult, the aged person, each has
his own kind of smell, and, as Monin remarks, it might be possible, within
certain limits, to discover the age of a person by his odor. Jorg in 1832
pointed out that in girls the appearance of a specific smell of the
excreta indicates the establishment of puberty, and Kaan, in his
_Psychopathia Sexualis_, remarked that at puberty "the sweat gives out a
more acrid odor resembling musk." In both sexes puberty, adolescence,
early manhood and womanhood are marked by a gradual development of the
adult odor of skin and excreta, in general harmony with the secondary
sexual development of hair and pigment. Venturi, indeed, has, not without
reason, described the odor of the body as a secondary sexual
character.[36] It may be added that, as is the case with the pigment in
various parts of the body in women, some of these odors tend to become
exaggerated in sympathy with sexual and other emotional states.

The odor of the infant is said to be of butyric acid; that of old
people to resemble dry leaves. Continent young men have been said
by many ancient writers to smell more strongly than the unchaste,
and some writers have described as "seminal odor"--an odor
resembling that of animals in heat, faintly recalling that of the
he-goat, according to Venturi--the exhalations of the skin at
such times.

During sexual excitement, as women can testify, a man very
frequently, if not normally, gives out an odor which, as usually
described, proceeds from the skin, the breath, or both. Grimaldi
states that it is as of rancid butter; others say it resembles
chloroform. It is said to be sometimes perceptible for a distance
of several feet and to last for several hours after coitus.
(Various quotations are given by Gould and Pyle, _Anomalies and
Curiosities of Medicine_, section on "Human Odors," pp. 397-403.)
St. Philip Neri is said to have been able to recognize a chaste
man by smell.

During menstruation girls and young women frequently give off an
odor which is quite distinct from that of the menstrual fluid,
and is specially marked in the breath, which may smell of
chloroform or violets. Pouchet (confirmed by Raciborski, _Traité
de la Menstruation_, 1868, p. 74) stated that about a day before
the onset of menstruation a characteristic smell is exuded.
Menstruating girls are also said sometimes to give off a smell of
leather. Aubert, of Lyons (as quoted by Galopin), describes the
odor of the skin of a woman during menstruation as an agreeable
aromatic or acidulous perfume of chloroform character. By some
this is described as emanating especially from the armpits.
Sandras (quoted by Raciborski) knew a lady who could always tell
by a sensation of faintness and _malaise_--apparently due to a
sensation of smell--when she was in contact with a menstruating
woman. I am acquainted with a man, having strong olfactory
sympathies and antipathies, who detects the presence of
menstruation by smell. It is said that Hortense Baré, who
accompanied her lover, the botanist Commerson, to the Pacific
disguised as a man, was recognized by the natives as a woman by
means of smell.

Women, like men, frequently give out an odor during coitus or
strong sexual excitement. This odor may be entirely different
from that normally emanating from the woman, of an acid or
hircine character, and sufficiently strong to remain in a room
for a considerable period. Many of the ancient medical writers
(as quoted by Schurigius, _Parthenologia_, p. 286) described the
goaty smell produced by venery, especially in women; they
regarded it as specially marked in harlots and in the newly
married, and sometimes even considered it a certain sign of
defloration. The case has been recorded of a woman who emitted a
rose odor for two days after coitus (McBride, quoted by Kiernan
in an interesting summary, "Odor in Pathology," _Doctor's
Magazine_, December, 1900). There was, it is said (_Journal des
Savans_ 1684, p. 39, quoting from the _Journal d'Angleterre_) a
monk in Prague who could recognize by smell the chastity of the
women who approached him. (This monk, it is added, when he died,
was composing a new science of odors.)

Gustav Klein (as quoted by Adler, _Die Mangelhafte
Geschlechtsempfindungen des Weibes_, p. 25) argues that the
special function of the glands at the vulvar orifice--the
_glandulæ vestibulares majores_--is to give out an odorous
secretion to act as an attraction to the male, this relic of
sexual periodicity no longer, however, playing an important part
in the human species. The vulvar secretion, however, it may be
added, still has a more aromatic odor than the vaginal secretion,
with its simple mucous odor, very clearly perceived during
parturition.

It may be added that we still know extremely little concerning
the sexual odors of women among primitive peoples. Ploss and
Bartels are only able to bring forward (_Das Weib_, 1901, bd. 1,
p. 218) a statement concerning the women of New Caledonia, who,
according to Moncelon, when young and ardent, give out during
coitus a powerful odor which no ablution will remove. In abnormal
states of sexual excitement such odor may be persistent, and,
according to an ancient observation, a nymphomaniac, whose
periods of sexual excitement lasted all through the spring-time,
at these periods always emitted a goatlike odor. It has been said
(G. Tourdes, art. "Aphrodisie," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des
Sciences Médicales_) that the erotic temperament is characterized
by a special odor.