If the body odors tend to develop at puberty, to be maintained during
sexual life, especially in sympathy with conditions of sexual disturbance,
and to become diminished in old age, being thus a kind of secondary sexual
character, we should expect them to be less marked in those cases in which
the primary sexual characters are less marked. It is possible that this is
actually the case. Hagen, in his _Sexuelle Osphrésiologie_, quotes from
Roubaud's _Traité de l'Impuissance_ the statement that the body odor of
the castrated differs from that of normal individuals. Burdach had
previously stated that the odor of the eunuch is less marked than that of
the normal man.

It is thus possible that defective sexual development tends to be
associated with corresponding olfactory defect. Heschl[37] has reported a
case in which absence of both olfactory nerves coincided with defective
development of the sexual organs. Féré remarks that the impotent show a
repugnance for sexual odors. Dr. Kiernan informs me that in women after
oöphorectomy he has noted a tendency to diminished (and occasionally
increased) sense of smell. These questions, however, await more careful
and extended observation.

A very significant transition from the phenomena of personal odor to those
of sexual attraction by personal odor is to be found in the fact that
among the peoples inhabiting a large part of the world's surface the
ordinary salutation between friends is by mutual smelling of the person.
In some form or another the method of salutation by applying the nose to
the nose, face, or hand of a friend in greeting is found throughout a
large part of the Pacific, among the Papuans, the Eskimo, the hill tribes
of India, in Africa, and elsewhere.[38] Thus, among a certain hill tribe
in India, according to Lewin, they smell a friend's cheek: "in their
language, they do not say, 'Give me a kiss,' but they say 'Smell me.'" And
on the Gambia, according to F. Moore, "When the men salute the women,
they, instead of shaking their hands, put it up to their noses, and smell
twice to the back of it." Here we have very clearly a recognition of the
emotional value of personal odor widely prevailing throughout the world.
The salutation on an olfactory basis may, indeed, be said to be more
general than the salutation on a tactile basis on which European
handshaking rests, each form involving one of the two most intimate and
emotional senses. The kiss may be said to be a development proceeding both
from the olfactory and the tactile bases, with perhaps some other elements
as well, and is too complex to be regarded as a phenomenon of either
purely tactile or purely olfactory origin.[39]

As the sole factor in sexual selection olfaction must be rare. It is said
that Asiatic princes have sometimes caused a number of the ladies to race
in the seraglio garden until they were heated; their garments have then
been brought to the prince, who has selected one of them solely by the
odor.[40] There was here a sexual selection mainly by odor. Any exclusive
efficacy of the olfactory sense is rare, not so much because the
impressions of this sense are inoperative, but because agreeable personal
odors are not sufficiently powerful, and the olfactory organ is too
obtuse, to enable smell to take precedence of sight. Nevertheless, in many
people, it is probable that certain odors, especially those that are
correlated with a healthy and sexually desirable person, tend to be
agreeable; they are fortified by their association with the loved person,
sometimes to an irresistible degree; and their potency is doubtless
increased by the fact, to which reference has already been made, that many
odors, including some bodily odors, are nervous stimulants.

It is possible that the sexual associations of odors have been still
further fortified by a tendency to correlation between a high development
of the olfactory organ and a high development of the sexual apparatus. An
association between a large nose and a large male organ is a very ancient
observation and has been verified occasionally in recent times. There is
normally at puberty a great increase in the septum of the nose, and it is
quite conceivable, in view of the sympathy, which, as we shall see,
certainly exists between the olfactory and sexual region, that the two
regions may develop together under a common influence.

The Romans firmly believed in the connection between a large nose
and a large penis. "Noscitur e naso quanta sit hasta viro,"
stated Ovid. This belief continued to prevail, especially in
Italy, through the middle ages; the physiognomists made much of
it, and licentious women (like Joanna of Naples) were, it
appears, accustomed to bear it in mind, although disappointment
is recorded often to have followed. (See e.g., the quotations and
references given by J.N. Mackenzie, "Physiological and
Pathological Relations between the Nose and the Sexual Apparatus
in Man." _Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin_, No. 82, January,
1898; also Hagen, _Sexuelle Osphrésiologie_, pp. 15-19.) A
similar belief as to the association between the sexual impulse
in women and a long nose was evidently common in England in the
sixteenth century, for in Massinger's _Emperor of the East_ (Act
II, Scene I) we read,

"Her nose, which by its length assures me
Of storms at midnight if I fail to pay her
The tribute she expects."

At the present day, a proverb of the Venetian people still
embodies the belief in the connection between a large nose and a
large sexual member.

The probability that such an association tends in many cases to
prevail is indicated not only by the beliefs of antiquity, when
more careful attention was paid to these matters, but by the
testimony of various modern observers, although it does not
appear that any series of exact observations have yet been made.

It may be noted that Marro, in his careful anthropological study
of criminals (_I Caratteri dei Delinquenti_), found no class of
criminals with so large a proportion alike of anomalies of the
nose and anomalies of the genital organs as sexual offenders.

However this may be, it is less doubtful that there is a very intimate
relation both in men and women between the olfactory mucous membrane of
the nose and the whole genital apparatus, that they frequently show a
sympathetic action, that influences acting on the genital sphere will
affect the nose, and occasionally, it is probable, influences acting on
the nose reflexly affect the genital sphere. To discuss these
relationships would here be out of place, since specialists are not
altogether in agreement concerning the matter. A few are inclined to
regard the association as extremely intimate, so that each region is
sensitive even to slight stimuli applied to the other region, while, on
the other hand, many authorities ignore altogether the question of the
relationship. It would appear, however, that there really is, in a
considerable number of people at all events, a reflex connection of this
kind. It has especially been noted that in many cases congestion of the
nose precedes menstruation.

Bleeding of the nose is specially apt to occur at puberty and during
adolescence, while in women it may take the place of menstruation and is
sometimes more apt to occur at the menstrual periods; disorders of the
nose have also been found to be aggravated at these periods. It has even
been possible to control bleeding of the nose, both in men and women, by
applying ice to the sexual regions. In both men and women, again, cases
have been recorded in which sexual excitement, whether of coitus or
masturbation, has been followed by bleeding of the nose. In numerous cases
it is followed by slight congestive conditions of the nasal passages and
especially by sneezing. Various authors have referred to this phenomenon;
I am acquainted with a lady in whom it is fairly constant.[41] Féré
records the case of a lady, a nervous subject, who began to experience
intense spontaneous sexual excitement shortly after marriage, accompanied
by much secretion from the nose.[42] J.N. Mackenzie is acquainted with a
number of such cases, and he considers that the popular expression
"bride's cold" indicates that this effect of strong sexual excitement is
widely recognized.

The late Professor Hack, of Freiburg, in 1884, called general
medical attention to the intimate connection between the nose and
states of nervous hyperexcitability in various parts of the body,
although such a connection had been recognized for many centuries
in medical literature. While Hack and his disciples thus gave
prominence to this association, they undoubtedly greatly
exaggerated its importance and significance. (Sir Felix Semon,
_British Medical Journal_, November 9, 1901.) Even many workers
who have more recently further added to our knowledge have also,
as sometimes happens with enthusiasts, unduly strained their own
data. Starting from the fact that in women during menstruation
examination of the nose reveals a degree of congestion not found
during the rest of the month, Fliess (_Die Beziehungen zwischen
Nase und Weiblichen Geschlechtsorganen_, 1897), with the help of
a number of elaborate and prolonged observations, has reached
conclusions which, while they seem to be hazardous at some
points, have certainly contributed to build up our knowledge of
this obscure subject. Schiff (_Wiener klinische Wochenschrift_,
1900, p. 58, summarized in _British Medical Journal_, February
16, 1901), starting from a skeptical standpoint, has confirmed
some of Fliess's results, and in a large number of cases
controlled painful menstruation by painting with cocaine the
so-called "genital spots" in the nose, all possibility of
suggestion being avoided. Ries, of Chicago, has been similarly
successful with the method of Fliess (_American Gynæcology_, vol.
iii, No. 4, 1903). Benedikt (_Wiener medicinische Wochenschrift_,
No. 8, 1901, summarized in _Journal of Medical Science_, October,
1901), while pointing out that the nose is not the only organ in
sympathetic relation with the sexual sphere, suggests that the
mechanism of the relationship is involved in the larger problem
of the harmony in growth and in nutrition of the different parts
of the organism. In this way, probably, we may attach
considerable significance to the existence of a kind of erectile
tissue in the nose.

An interesting example of a reflex influence from the nose
affecting the genital sphere has been brought forward by Dr. E.S.
Talbot, of Chicago: "A 56-year-old man was operated on
(September 1, 1903) for the removal of the left cartilage of the
septum of the nose owing to a previous traumatic fracture at the
sixteenth year. No pain was experienced until two years ago, when
a continual soreness occurred at the apical end of the fracture
during the winter months. The operation was decided upon fearing
more serious complications. The parts were cocainized. No pain
was experienced in the operation except at one point at the lower
posterior portion near the floor of the nose. A profound shock to
the general system followed. The reflex influence of the pain
upon the genital organs caused semen to flow continually for
three weeks. Treatment of general motor irritability with camphor
monobromate and conium, on consultation with Dr. Kiernan, checked
the flow. The discharge produced spinal neurasthenia. The legs
and feet felt heavy. Erythromelalgia caused uneasiness. The
patient walked with difficulty. The tired feeling in the feet and
limbs was quite noticeable four months after the operation,
although the pain had, to a great extent diminished." (Chicago
Academy of Medicine, January, 1904, and private letter.)

J.N. Mackenzie has brought together a great many original
observations, together with interesting quotations from old
medical literature, in his two papers: "The Pathological Nasal
Reflex" (_New York Medical Journal_, August 20, 1887) and "The
Physiological and Pathological Relations between the Nose and the
Sexual Apparatus of Man" (_Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin_,
January 1, 1898). A number of cases have also been brought
together from the literature by G. Endriss in his Inaugural
Dissertation, _Die bisherigen Beobachtungen von Physiologischen
und Pathologischen Beziehungen der oberen Luftwege zu den
Sexualorganen_, Teil. II, Würzburg, 1892.

The intimate association between the sexual centers and the olfactory
tract is well illustrated by the fact that this primitive and ancient
association tends to come to the surface in insanity. It is recognized by
many alienists that insanity of a sexual character is specially liable to
be associated with hallucinations of smell.

Many eminent alienists in various countries are very decidedly of
the opinion that there is a special tendency to the association
of olfactory hallucinations with sexual manifestations, and,
although one or two authorities have expressed doubt on the
matter, the available evidence clearly indicates such an
association. Hallucinations of smell are comparatively rare as
compared to hallucinations of sight and hearing; they are
commoner in women than in men and they not infrequently occur at
periods of sexual disturbance, at adolescence, in puerperal
fever, at the change of life, in women with ovarian troubles, and
in old people troubled with sexual desires or remorse for such
desires. They have often been noted as specially frequent in
cases of excessive masturbation.

Krafft-Ebing, who found olfactory hallucinations common in
various sexual states, considers that they are directly dependent
on sexual excitement (_Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_,
bd. 34, ht. 4, 1877). Conolly Norman believes in a distinct and
frequent association between olfactory hallucinations and sexual
disturbance (_Journal of Mental Science_, July, 1899, p. 532).
Savage is also impressed by the close association between sexual
disturbance or changes in the reproductive organs and
hallucinations of smell as well as of touch. He has found that
persistent hallucinations of smell disappeared when a diseased
ovary was removed, although the patient remained insane. He
considers that such hallucinations of smell are allied to
reversions. (G.H. Savage, "Smell, Hallucinations of," Tuke's
_Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_; cf. the same author's
manual of _Insanity and Allied Neuroses_.) Matusch, while not
finding olfactory hallucinations common at the climacteric,
states that when they are present they are connected with uterine
trouble and sexual craving. He finds them more common in young
women. (Matusch, "Der Einfluss des Climacterium auf Entstchung
und Form der Geistesstörung," _Allgemeine Zeitschrift für
Psychiatrie_, vol. xlvi, ht. 4). Féré has related a significant
case of a young man in whom hallucinations of smell accompanied
the sexual orgasm; he subsequently developed epilepsy, to which
the hallucination then constituted the aura (_Comptes Rendus de
la Société de Biologie_, December, 1896). The prevalence of a
sexual element in olfactory hallucinations has been investigated
by Bullen, who examined into 95 cases of hallucinations of smell
among the patients in several asylums. (In a few cases there were
reasons for believing that peripheral conditions existed which
would render these hallucinations more strictly illusions.) Of
these, 64 were women. Sixteen of the women were climacteric
cases, and 3 of them had sexual hallucinations or delusions.
Fourteen other women (chiefly cases of chronic delusional
insanity) had sexual delusions. Altogether, 31 men and women had
sexual delusions. This is a large proportion. Bullen is not,
however, inclined to admit any direct connection between the
reproductive system and the sense of smell. He finds that other
hallucinations are very frequently associated with the olfactory
hallucinations, and considers that the co-existence of olfactory
and sexual troubles simply indicates a very deep and widespread
nervous disturbance. (F. St. John Bullen, "Olfactory
Hallucinations in the Insane," _Journal of Mental Science_, July,
1899.) In order to elucidate the matter fully we require further
precise inquiries on the lines Bullen has laid down.

It may be of interest to note, in this connection, that smell and
taste hallucinations appear to be specially frequent in forms of
religious insanity. Thus, Dr. Zurcher, in her inaugural
dissertation on Joan of Arc (_Jeanne d'Arc_, Leipzig, 1895, p.
72), estimates that on the average in such insanity nearly 50 per
cent, of the hallucinations affect smell and taste; she refers
also to the olfactory hallucinations of great religious leaders,
Francis of Assisi, Katherina Emmerich, Lazzaretti, and the
Anabaptists.

It may well be, as Zwaardemaker has suggested in his _Physiologie des
Geruchs_, that the nasal congestion at menstruation and similar phenomena
are connected with that association of smell and sexuality which is
observable throughout the whole animal world, and that the congestion
brings about a temporary increase of olfactory sensitiveness during the
stage of sexual excitation.[43] Careful investigation of olfactory
acuteness would reveal the existence of such menstrual heightening of its
acuity.

In a few exceptional, but still quite healthy people, smell would appear
to possess an emotional predominance which it cannot be said to possess in
the average person. These exceptional people are of what Binet in his
study of sexual fetichism calls olfactive type; such persons form a group
which, though of smaller size and less importance, is fairly comparable to
the well-known groups of visual type, of auditory type, and of psychomotor
type. Such people would be more attentive to odors, more moved by
olfactory sympathies and antipathies, than are ordinary people. For these,
it may well be, the supremacy accorded to olfactory influences in Jäger's
_Entdeckung der Seele_, though extravagantly incorrect for ordinary
persons, may appear quite reasonable.

It is certain also that a great many neurasthenic people, and
particularly those who are sexually neurasthenic, are peculiarly
susceptible to olfactory influences. A number of eminent poets and
novelists--especially, it would appear, in France--seem to be in this
case. Baudelaire, of all great poets, has most persistently and most
elaborately emphasized the imaginative and emotional significance of odor;
the _Fleurs du Mal_ and many of the _Petits Poèmes en Prose_ are, from
this point of view, of great interest. There can be no doubt that in
Baudelaire's own imaginative and emotional life the sense of smell played
a highly important part; and that, in his own words, odor was to him what
music is to others. Throughout Zola's novels--and perhaps more especially
in _La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret_--there is an extreme insistence on odors of
every kind. Prof. Leopold Bernard wrote an elaborate study of this aspect
of Zola's work[44]; he believed that underlying Zola's interest in odors
there was an abnormally keen olfactory sensibility and large development
of the olfactory region of the brain. Such a supposition is, however,
unnecessary, and, as a matter of fact, a careful examination of Zola's
olfactory sensibility, conducted by M. Passy, showed that it was somewhat
below normal.[45] At the same time it was shown that Zola was really a
person of olfactory psychic type, with a special attention to odors and a
special memory for them; as is frequently the case with perfumers with
less than normal olfactory acuity he possessed a more than normal power of
discriminating odors; it is possible that in early life his olfactory
acuity may also have been above normal. In the same way Nietzsche, in his
writings, shows a marked sensibility, and especially antipathy, as regards
odors, which has by some been regarded as an index to a real physical
sensibility of abnormal keenness; according to Möbius, however, there was
no reason for supposing this to be the case.[46] Huysmans, who throughout
his books reveals a very intense preoccupation with the exact shades of
many kinds of sensory impressions, and an apparently abnormally keen
sensibility to them, has shown a great interest in odors, more especially
in an oft-quoted passage in _A Rebours_. The blind Milton of "Paradise
Lost" (as the late Mr. Grant Allen once remarked to me), dwells much on
scents; in this case it is doubtless to the blindness and not to any
special organic predisposition that we must attribute this direction of
sensory attention.[47] Among our older English poets, also, Herrick
displays a special interest in odors with a definite realization of their
sexual attractiveness.[48] Shelley, who was alive to so many of the
unusual æsthetic aspects of things, often shows an enthusiastic delight in
odors, more especially those of flowers. It may, indeed, be said that most
poets--though to a less degree than those I have mentioned--devote a
special attention to odors, and, since it has been possible to describe
smell as the sense of imagination, this need not surprise us. That
Shakespeare, for instance, ranked this sense very high indeed is shown by
various passages in his works and notably by Sonnet LIV: "O, how much more
doth beauty beauteous seem?"--in which he implicitly places the attraction
of odor on at least as high a level as that of vision.[49]

A neurasthenic sensitiveness to odors, specially sexual odors, is
frequently accompanied by lack of sexual vigor. In this way we may account
for the numerous cases in which old men in whom sexual desire survives the
loss of virile powers--probably somewhat abnormal persons at the
outset--find satisfaction in sexual odors. Here, also, we have the basis
for olfactory fetichism. In such fetichism the odor of the woman alone,
whoever she may be and however unattractive she may be, suffices to
furnish complete sexual satisfaction. In many, although not all, of those
cases in which articles of women's clothing become the object of
fetichistic attraction, there is certainly an olfactory element due to the
personal odor attaching to the garments.[50]

Olfactory influences play a certain part in various sexually
abnormal tendencies and practices which do not proceed from an
exclusively olfactory fascination. Thus, _cunnilingus_ and
_fellatio_ derive part of their attraction, more especially in
some individuals, from a predilection for the odors of the sexual
parts. (See, e.g., Moll, _Untersuchungen über die Libido
Sexualis_, bd. 1, p. 134.) In many cases smell plays no part in
the attraction; "I enjoy _cunnilingus_, if I like the girl very
much," a correspondent writes, "_in spite_ of the smell." We may
associate this impulse with the prevalence of these practices
among sexual inverts, in whom olfactory attractions are often
specially marked. Those individuals, also, who are sexually
affected by the urinary and alvine excretions ("_renifleurs_,"
"_stereoraires_," etc.) are largely, though not necessarily
altogether, moved by olfactory impressions. The attraction was,
however, exclusively olfactory in the case of the young woman
recorded by Moraglia (_Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1892, p. 267),
who was irresistibly excited by the odor of the fermented urine
of men, and possibly also in the case narrated to Moraglia by
Prof. L. Bianchi (ib. p. 568), in which a wife required flatus
from her husband.

The sexual pleasure derived from partial strangulation (discussed
in the study of "Love and Pain" in a previous volume) may be
associated with heightened olfactory sexual excitation. Dr.
Kiernan, who points this out to me, has investigated a few
neuropathic patients who like to have their necks squeezed, as
they express it, and finds that in the majority the olfactory
sensibility is thus intensified.

Even in ordinary normal persons, however, there can be no doubt that
personal odor tends to play a not inconsiderable part in sexual
attractions and sexual repulsions. As a sexual excitant, indeed, it comes
far behind the stimuli received through the sense of sight. The
comparative bluntness of the sense of smell in man makes it difficult for
olfactory influence to be felt, as a rule, until the preliminaries of
courtship are already over; so that it is impossible for smell ever to
possess the same significance in sexual attraction in man that it
possesses in the lower animals. With that reservation there can be no
doubt that odor has a certain favorable or unfavorable influence in sexual
relationships in all human races from the lowest to the highest. The
Polynesian spoke with contempt of those women of European race who "have
no smell," and in view of the pronounced personal odor of so many savage
peoples as well as of the careful attention which they so often pay to
odors, we may certainly assume, even in the absence of much definite
evidence, that smell counts for much in their sexual relationships. This
is confirmed by such practices as that found among some primitive
peoples--as, it is stated, in the Philippines--of lovers exchanging their
garments to have the smell of the loved one about them. In the barbaric
stages of society this element becomes self-conscious and is clearly
avowed; personal odors are constantly described with complacency,
sometimes as mingled with the lavish use of artificial perfumes, in much
of the erotic literature produced in the highest stages of barbarism,
especially by Eastern peoples living in hot climates; it is only necessary
to refer to the _Song of Songs_, the _Arabian Nights_, and the Indian
treatises on love. Even in some parts of Europe the same influence is
recognized in the crudest animal form, and Krauss states that among the
Southern Slavs it is sometimes customary to leave the sexual parts
unwashed because a strong odor of these parts is regarded as a sexual
stimulant. Under the usual conditions of life in Europe personal odor has
sunk into the background; this has been so equally under the conditions of
classic, mediæval, and modern life. Personal odor has been generally
regarded as unæsthetic; it has, for the most part, only been mentioned to
be reprobated, and even those poets and others who during recent centuries
have shown a sensitive delight and interest in odors--Herrick, Shelley,
Baudelaire, Zola, and Huysmans--have seldom ventured to insist that a
purely natural and personal odor can be agreeable. The fact that it may be
so, and that for most people such odors cannot be a matter of indifference
in the most intimate of all relationships, is usually only to be learned
casually and incidentally. There can be no doubt, however, that, as
Kiernan points out, the extent to which olfaction influences the sexual
sphere in civilized man has been much underestimated. We need not,
therefore, be surprised at the greater interest which has recently been
taken in this subject. As usually happens, indeed, there has been in some
writers a tendency to run to the opposite extreme, and we cannot, with
Gustav Jäger, regard the sexual instinct as mainly or altogether an
olfactory matter.

Of the Padmini, the perfect woman, the "lotus woman," Hindu
writers say that "her sweat has the odor of musk," while the
vulgar woman, they say, smells of fish (_Kama Sutra of
Vatsyayana_). Ploss and Bartels (_Das Weib_, 1901, p. 218) bring
forward a passage from the Tamil _Kokkôgam_, minutely describing
various kinds of sexual odor in women, which they regard as
resting on sound observation.

Four things in a woman, says the Arab, should be perfumed: the
mouth, the armpits, the pudenda, and the nose. The Persian poets,
in describing the body, delighted to use metaphors involving
odor. Not only the hair and the down on the face, but the chin,
the mouth, the beauty spots, the neck, all suggested odorous
images. The epithets applied to the hair frequently refer to
musk, ambergris, and civet. (_Anis El-Ochchâq_ translated by
Huart, _Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes_, fasc. 25,
1875.)

The Hebrew _Song of Songs_ furnishes a typical example of a very
beautiful Eastern love-poem in which the importance of the appeal
to the sense of smell is throughout emphasized. There are in this
short poem as many as twenty-four fairly definite references to
odors,--personal odors, perfumes, and flowers,--while numerous
other references to flowers, etc., seem to point to olfactory
associations. Both the lover and his sweetheart express pleasure
in each other's personal odor.

"My beloved is unto me," she sings, "as a bag of myrrh
That lieth between my breasts;
My beloved is unto me as a cluster of henna flowers
In the vineyard of En-gedi."

And again: "His cheeks are as a bed of spices [or balsam], as
banks of sweet herbs." While of her he says: "The smell of thy
breath [or nose] is like apples."

Greek and Roman antiquity, which has so largely influenced the
traditions of modern Europe, was lavish in the use of perfumes,
but showed no sympathy with personal odors. For the Roman
satirists, like Martial, a personal odor is nearly always an
unpleasant odor, though, there are a few allusions in classic
literature recognizing bodily smell as a sexual attraction. Ovid,
in his _Ars Amandi_ (Book III), says it is scarcely necessary to
remind a lady that she must not keep a goat in her armpits: "_ne
trux caper iret in alas_." "_Mulier tum bene olet ubi nihil
olet_" is an ancient dictum, and in the sixteenth century
Montaigne still repeated the same saying with complete approval.

A different current of feeling began to appear with the new
emotional movement during the eighteenth century. Rousseau called
attention to the importance of the olfactory sense, and in his
educational work, _Emile_ (Bk. II), he referred to the odor of a
woman's "_cabinet de toilette_" as not so feeble a snare as is
commonly supposed. In the same century Casanova wrote still more
emphatically concerning the same point; in the preface to his
_Mémoires_ he states: "I have always found sweet the odor of the
women I have loved"; and elsewhere: "There is something in the
air of the bedroom of the woman one loves, something so intimate,
so balsamic, such voluptuous emanations, that if a lover had to
choose between Heaven and this place of delight his hesitation
would not last for a moment" (_Mémoires_, vol. iii). In the
previous century, in England, Sir Kenelm Digby, in his
interesting and remarkable _Private Memoirs_, when describing a
visit to Lady Venetia Stanley, afterward his wife, touches on
personal odor as an element of attraction; he had found her
asleep in bed and on her breasts "did glisten a few drops of
sweatlike diamond sparks, and had a more fragrant odor than the
violets or primroses whose season was newly passed."

In 1821 Cadet-Devaux published, in the _Revue Encyclopédique_, a
study entitled "De l'atmosphère de la Femme et de sa Puissance,"
which attracted a great deal of attention in Germany as well as
in France; he considered that the exhalations of the feminine
body are of the first importance in sexual attraction.

Prof. A. Galopin in 1886 wrote a semiscientific book, _Le Parfum
de la Femme_, in which the sexual significance of personal odor
is developed to its fullest. He writes with enthusiasm concerning
the sweet and health-giving character of the natural perfume of a
beloved woman, and the mischief done both to health and love by
the use of artificial perfumes. "The purest marriage that can be
contracted between a man and a woman," he asserts (p. 157) "is
that engendered by olfaction and sanctioned by a common
assimilation in the brain of the animated molecules due to the
secretion and evaporation of two bodies in contact and sympathy."

In a book written during the first half of the nineteenth century
which contains various subtle observations on love we read, with
reference to the sweet odor which poets have found in the breath
of women: "In reality many women have an intoxicatingly agreeable
breath which plays no small part in the love-compelling
atmosphere which they spread around them" (_Eros oder Wörterbuch
über die Physiologie_, 1849, Bd. 1, p. 45).

Most of the writers on the psychology of love at this period,
however, seem to have passed over the olfactory element in sexual
attraction, regarding it probably as too unæsthetic. It receives
no emphasis either in Sénancour's _De l'Amour_ or Stendhal's _De
l'Amour_ or Michelet's _L'Amour_.

The poets within recent times have frequently referred to odors,
personal and other, but the novelists have more rarely done so.
Zola and Huysmans, the two novelists who have most elaborately
and insistently developed the olfactory side of life, have dwelt
more on odors that are repulsive than on those that are
agreeable. It is therefore of interest to note that in a few
remarkable novels of recent times the attractiveness of personal
odor has been emphasized. This is notably so in Tolstoy's _War
and Peace_, in which Count Peter suddenly resolves to marry
Princess Helena after inhaling her odor at a ball. In
d'Annunzio's _Trionfo della Morte_ the seductive and consoling
odor of the beloved woman's skin is described in several
passages; thus, when Giorgio kissed Ippolita's arms and
shoulders, we are told, "he perceived the sharp and yet delicate
perfume of her, the perfume of the skin that in the hour of joy
became intoxicating as that of the tuberose, and a terrible lash
to desire."

When we are dealing with the sexual significance of personal odors in man
there is at the outset an important difference to be noticed in comparison
with the lower mammals. Not only is the significance of odor altogether
very much less, but the focus of olfactory attractiveness has been
displaced. The centre of olfactory attractiveness is not, as usually among
animals, in the sexual region, but is transferred to the upper part of the
body. In this respect the sexual olfactory allurement in man resembles
what we find in the sphere of vision, for neither the sexual organs of man
nor of woman are usually beautiful in the eyes of the opposite sex, and
their exhibition is not among us regarded as a necessary stage in
courtship. The odor of the body, like its beauty, in so far as it can be
regarded as a possible sexual allurement, has in the course of development
been transferred to the upper parts. The careful concealment of the sexual
region has doubtless favored this transfer. It has thus happened that when
personal odor acts as a sexual allurement it is the armpit, in any case
normally the chief focus of odor in the body, which mainly comes into
play, together with the skin and the hair.

Aubert, of Lyons, noted that during menstruation the odor of the
armpits may become more powerful, and describes it as being at
this time an aromatic odor of acidulous or chloroform character.
Galopin remarks that, while some women's armpits smell of sheep
in rut, others, when exposed to the air, have a fragrance of
ambergris or violet. Dark persons (according to Gould and Pyle)
are said sometimes to exhale a prussic acid odor, and blondes
more frequently musk; Galopin associates the ambergris odor more
especially with blondes.

While some European poets have faintly indicated the woman's
armpit as a centre of sexual attraction, it is among Eastern
poets that we may find the idea more directly and naturally
expressed. Thus, in a Chinese drama ("The Transmigration of
Yo-Chow," _Mercure de France_, No. 8, 1901) we find a learned
young doctor addressing the following poem to his  betrothed:--

"When I have climbed to the bushy summit of Mount Chao,
I have still not reached to the level of your odorous armpit.
I must needs mount to the sky
Before the breeze brings to me
The perfume of that embalsamed nest!"

This poet seems, however, to have been carried to a pitch of
enthusiasm unusual even in China, for his future mother-in-law,
after expressing her admiration for the poem, remarks: "But who
would have thought one could find so many beautiful things under
my daughter's armpit!"

The odor of the armpit is the most powerful in the body,
sufficiently powerful to act as a muscular stimulant even in the
absence of any direct sexual association. This is indicated by an
observation made by Féré, who noticed, when living opposite a
laundry, that an old woman who worked near the window would,
toward the close of the day, introduce her right hand under the
sleeve of the other to the armpit and then hold it to her nose;
this she would do about every five minutes. It was evident that
the odor acted as a stimulant to her failing energies. Féré has
been informed by others who have had occasion to frequent
workrooms that this proceeding is by no means uncommon among
persons of both sexes. (Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, second
edition, p. 135.) I have myself noticed the same gesture very
deliberately made in the street by a young English woman of the
working class, under circumstances which suggested that it acted
as an immediate stimulant in fatigue.

Huysmans--who in his novels has insisted on odors, both those of
a personal kind and perfumes, with great precision--has devoted
one of the sketches, "Le Gousset," in his _Croquis Parisiens_
(1880) to the varying odors of women's armpits. "I have followed
this fragrance in the country," he remarks, "behind a group of
women gleaners under the bright sun. It was excessive and
terrible; it stung your nostrils like an unstoppered bottle of
alkali; it seized you, irritating your mucous membrane with a
rough odor which had in it something of the relish of wild duck
cooked with olives and the sharp odor of the shallot. On the
whole, it was not a vile or repugnant emanation; it united, as an
anticipated thing, with the formidable odors of the landscape; it
was the pure note, completing with the human animals' cry of heat
the odorous melody of beasts and woods." He goes on to speak of
the perfume of feminine arms in the ball-room. "There the aroma
is of ammoniated valerian, of chlorinated urine, brutally
accentuated sometimes, even with a slight scent of prussic acid
about it, a faint whiff of overripe peaches." These
"spice-boxes," however, Huysmans continues, are more seductive
when their perfume is filtered through the garments. "The appeal
of the balsam of their arms is then less insolent, less cynical,
than at the ball where they are more naked, but it more easily
uncages the animal in man. Various as the color of the hair, the
odor of the armpit is infinitely divisible; its gamut covers the
whole keyboard of odors, reaching the obstinate scents of syringa
and elder, and sometimes recalling the sweet perfume of the
rubbed fingers that have held a cigarette. Audacious and
sometimes fatiguing in the brunette and the black woman, sharp
and fierce in the red woman, the armpit is heady as some sugared
wines in the blondes." It will be noted that this very exact
description corresponds at various points with the remarks of
more scientific observers.

Sometimes the odor of the armpit may even become a kind of fetich
which is craved for its own sake and in itself suffices to give
pleasure. Féré has recorded such a case, in a friend of his own,
a man of 60, with whom at one time he used to hunt, of robust
health and belonging to a healthy family. On these hunting
expeditions he used to tease the girls and women he met
(sometimes even rather old women) in a surprising manner, when he
came upon them walking in the fields with their short-sleeved
chemises exposed. When he had succeeded in introducing his hand
into the woman's armpit he went away satisfied, and frequently
held the hand to his nose with evident pleasure. After long
hesitation Féré asked for an explanation, which was frankly
given. As a child he had liked the odor, without knowing why. As
a young man women with strong odors had stimulated him to
extraordinary sexual exploits, and now they were the only women
who had any influence on him. He professed to be able to
recognize continence by the odor, as well as the most favorable
moment for approaching a woman. Throughout life a cold in the
head had always been accompanied by persistent general
excitement. (Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, 1902, p. 134.)

We not only have to recognize that in the course of evolution the specific
odors of the sexual region have sunk into the background as a source of
sexual allurements, we have further to recognize the significant fact that
even those personal odors which are chiefly liable under normal
circumstances to come occasionally within the conscious sexual sphere, and
indeed purely personal odors of all kinds, fail to exert any attraction,
but rather tend to cause antipathy, unless some degree of tumescence has
already been attained. That is to say, our olfactory experiences of the
human body approximate rather to our tactile experiences of it than to our
visual experiences. Sight is our most intellectual sense, and we trust
ourselves to it with comparative boldness without any undue dread that its
messages will hurt us by their personal intimacy; we even court its
experiences, for it is the chief organ of our curiosity, as smell is of a
dog's. But smell with us has ceased to be a leading channel of
intellectual curiosity. Personal odors do not, as vision does, give us
information that is very largely intellectual; they make an appeal that is
mainly of an intimate, emotional, imaginative character. They thus tend,
when we are in our normal condition, to arouse what James calls the
antisexual instinct.

"I cannot understand how people do not see how the senses are
connected," said Jenny Lind to J.A. Symonds (Horatio Brown, _J.A.
Symonds_, vol. i, p. 207). "What I have suffered from my sense of
smell! My youth was misery from my acuteness of sensibility."

Mantegazza discusses the strength of olfactory antipathies
(_Fisiologia dell' Odio_, p. 101), and mentions that once when
ill in Paraguay he was nursed by an Indian girl of 16, who was
fresh as a peach and extremely clean, but whose odor--"a mixture
of wild beast's lair and decayed onions"--caused nausea and
almost made him faint.

Moll (_Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, bd. i, p. 135)
records the case of a neuropathic man who was constantly rendered
impotent by his antipathy to personal body odors. It had very
frequently happened to him to be attracted by the face and
appearance of a girl, but at the last moment potency was
inhibited by the perception of personal odor.

In the case of a man of distinguished ability known to me,
belonging to a somewhat neuropathic family, there is extreme
sensitiveness to the smell of a woman, which is frequently the
most obvious thing to him about her. He has seldom known a woman
whose natural perfume entirely suits him, and his olfactory
impressions have frequently been the immediate cause of a rupture
of relationships.

It was formerly discussed whether strong personal odor
constituted adequate ground for divorce. Hagen, who brings
forward references on this point (_Sexuelle Osphrésiologie_, pp.
75-83), considers that the body odors are normally and naturally
repulsive because they are closely associated with the capryl
group of odors, which are those of many of the excretions.

Olfactory antipathies are, however, often strictly subordinated
to the individual's general emotional attitude toward the object
from which they emanate. This is illustrated in the case, known
to me, of a man who on a hot day entering a steamboat with a
woman to whom he was attached seated himself between her and a
man, a stranger. He soon became conscious of an axillary odor
which he concluded to come from the man and which he felt as
disagreeable. But a little later he realized that it proceeded
from his own companion, and with this discovery the odor at once
lost its disagreeable character.

In this respect a personal odor resembles a personal touch. Two
intimate touches of the hand, though of precisely similar
physical quality, may in their emotional effects be separated by
an immeasurable interval, in dependence on our attitude toward
the person from whom they proceed.