The use of perfumes like camphor to ward off infection has long been in vogue. The pompous doctors of Hogarth’s time—just 200 years ago—carried walking-sticks the hollow handle of which formed a receptacle for camphor, musk, or other pungent substances, which they held to their noses when visiting patients, to guard against the smells that to them spelt infection. And the air of the Old Bailey used to be, and indeed still is, sweetened with herbs strewn on the Bench, lest the prisoner about to be condemned to death by the rope might return the compliment and sentence his judge to death by gaol-fever. To this day, also, herbs are strewn about the Guildhall on state and ceremonial occasions, an interesting survival.
Demoniac possession was also largely responsible for the nauseous and disgusting remedies of which early medicine, both among the folk and among the more educated medical men, was very fond.
Paracelsus was a great believer in such concoctions, one of which, zebethum occidentale, was his own invention. Fortunately I am not compelled to divulge the constitution of this remarkable remedy. All I need say is that it was by no means the “cassia, sandal-buds, and stripes of labdanum” of Browning’s “Paracelsus”!
Those unspeakable medicaments were (and are still) sometimes applied externally, sometimes administered internally. One of the most absurd variants of this class was the holding of divers foulsmelling mixtures under the patient’s nose for the cure of hysteria, the idea being that the stench would repel the “mother” from the patient’s throat, whither it had wandered through sheer boredom and lack of interest elsewhere.
Nevertheless, out of these most absurd and to us meaningless methods of treatment modern medicine has here and there selected remedies which experiment and experience have proved to be of value; valerian, for example, which is still largely employed for hysterical conditions, and asafœtida (popularly named “devil’s dung”).
As a matter of fact, many pungent, strong-smelling substances are powerful cardiac and muscular stimulants.
Nor must we overlook the carminatives, the pleasantly smelling dill, aniseed, rue and peppermint, the very names of which bring to our minds the sweetness of old country places and the efforts, not always vain, to quiet screaming country babies! Well are they named the carminatives, acting as they do “like a charm.”
In the Æneid we are told how once upon a time his divine mother was revealed to pious Æneas by a heavenly odour. And although Lucian intimates that the gods themselves enjoyed the smell of incense, yet, according to Elliot Smith, the real object of incense-burning was to impart the body-odour of the god to his worshippers. Something of the kind, whatever the primary motive may have been, must have been needed, one would imagine, to drown the unpleasant smells from the abattoirs in the temples where the sacrificial animals were slaughtered.
The wrath of the Lord God of the Hebrews after the Flood, it will be remembered, was appeased when he smelled the sweet savour of the burnt offerings of Noah on his emergence from the Ark. The sacrifice was, of course, the meal of the god, the flesh of bullocks, rams, doves, and what not, being spiritualised by the flames and so transformed into food a spirit could absorb. The Greek gods, it is true, refreshed themselves with such ethereal delicacies as nectar and ambrosia, but they were by no means indifferent to the square meal of roast beef so punctiliously provided for them by human purveyors. Homer is always careful to mention that, as often as a feast was toward, neither the gods nor the bards were forgotten, the former being fed before and the latter after the heroes themselves had been satisfied.
When, following the Persian division of the unseen world of spirits into good and bad, the idea of an evil-minded and consistently hostile god became popular, his odour was naturally enough the opposite of that of the kindly gods. And as in time he came to assume some of the attributes of the Roman di inferni, he, like the dragons of an even greater antiquity, sported the sulphury odour of his underground dwelling.