Zippe (Wien. Med. Wochenschrift, 1879, Nr. 24), in connection with a case of kleptomania in an onanist, likewise establishes such relations, and cites Hildebrand as authority, who in his popular physiology says: “It cannot be doubted that the olfactory sense stands in remote connection with the sexual apparatus. Odors of flowers often occasion pleasurable sensual feelings, and when one remembers the passage in the ‘Song of Solomon,’ ‘And my hands dropped with myrrh and my fingers with sweet-smelling myrrh upon the handles of the lock,’ one finds that it did not escape Solomon’s observation. In the Orient the pleasant perfumes are esteemed for their relation to the sexual organs, and the women’s apartments of the Sultan are filled with the perfumes of flowers.”
Most, professor in Rostock (comp. Zippe), relates: “I learned from a sensual young peasant that he had excited many a chaste girl sexually, and easily gained his end, by carrying his handkerchief in his axilla for a time, while dancing, and then wiping his partner’s perspiring face with it.”
The case of Henry III shows that contact with a person’s perspiration may be the exciting cause of passionate love. At the betrothal feast of the King of Navarre and Margaret of Valois, he accidentally dried his face with a garment of Maria of Cleves, which was moist with her perspiration. Although she was the bride of the Prince of Condé, Henry conceived immediately such a passionate love for her that he could not resist it, and made her, as history shows, very unhappy. An analogous instance is related of Henry IV, whose passion for the beautiful Gabriel is said to have originated at the instant when, at a ball, he wiped his brow with her handkerchief.
Professor Jäger, the “discoverer of the soul,” refers to the same thing in his well-known book (2d ed., 1880, chap. xv, p. 173); for he regards the sweat as important in the production of sexual effects and as being especially seductive.
One learns from reading the work of Ploss (“Das Weib”) that attempts to attract a person of the opposite sex by means of the perspiration may be discerned in many forms in popular psychology.
In reference to this, a custom which holds among the natives of the Philippine Islands when they become engaged, as reported by Jäger, is remarkable. When it becomes necessary for the engaged pair to separate, they exchange articles of wearing-apparel, by means of which each becomes assured of faithfulness. These objects are carefully preserved, covered with kisses, and smelled.
The love of certain libertines and sensual women for perfumes[[23]] indicates a relation between the olfactory and sexual senses.
A case mentioned by Heschl (Wiener Zeitschrift f. pract. Heilkunde, March 22, 1861) is remarkable, where the absence of both olfactory lobes was accompanied by imperfectly developed genitals. It was the case of a man aged 45, in all respects well developed, with the exception of the testicles, which were not larger than beans and contained no seminal canals, and the larynx, which seemed to be of feminine dimensions. Every trace of olfactory nerves was wanting, and the trigona olfactoria and the furrow on the under surface of the anterior lobes were absent. The perforations of the ethmoid plate were sparingly present, and occupied by nerveless processes of the dura instead of by nerves. In the mucous membrane of the nose there was also an absence of nerves. Finally, the clearly-defined relation of the olfactory and sexual senses in mental diseases is worthy of notice, in that in the psychoses of both sexes dependent on masturbation, as well as in insanity due to disease of the sexual organs of the female, or during the climacteric[[24]], olfactory hallucinations are especially frequent, while in cases where a sexual cause is wanting they are very infrequent.
I am inclined to doubt[[25]] that olfactory impressions in man, under normal conditions, as in animals, play an important rôle in the excitation of the sexual centre. On account of the importance of this consensus for the understanding of pathological cases, it is necessary here to thoroughly consider the relations existing between the olfactory and sexual senses.
The sexual sphere of the cerebral cortex may be excited, in the sense of an excitation of sexual concepts and impulses, by processes in the generative organs. This is possible as a result of all conditions which also excite the erection-centre by means of centripetal influence (stimulus resulting from distension of the seminal vesicles; enlarged Graafian follicle; any sensory stimulus, however produced, about the genitals; hyperæmia and turgescence of the genitals, especially of the erectile tissue of the corpus cavernosum of the penis and clitoris, as a result of luxurious, sedentary life; plethora abdominalis, high external temperature, warm beds, clothing; taking of cantharides, pepper, and other spices).