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.