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.
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.