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).
Emile Yung, "Le Sens Olfactif de l'Escargot (Helix Pomata)," Archives de Psychologie, November, 1903.
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.