Studies in the Psychology of Sex Volume Iv Part 4

Dr. J. N. Mackenzie (American Journal of the Medical Sciences, January, 1886) considers that civilization exerts an influence in heightening or encouraging the influence of olfaction as it affects our emotions and judgment, and that, in the same way, as we ascend the social scale the more readily our minds are influenced and perhaps perverted by impressions received through the sense of smell.

Odors are powerful stimulants to the whole nervous system, causing, like other stimulants, an increase of energy which, if excessive or prolonged, leads to nervous exhaustion. Thus, it is well recognized in medicine that the aromatics containing volatile oils (such as anise, cinnamon, cardamoms, cloves, coriander, and peppermint) are antispasmodics and anaesthetics, and that they stimulate digestion, circulation, and the nervous system, in large doses producing depression. The carefully arranged plethysmographic experiments of Shields, at the Johns Hopkins University, have shown that olfactory sensations, by their action on the vasomotor system, cause an increase of blood in the brain and sometimes in addition stimulation of the heart; musk, wintergreen, wood violet, and especially heliotrope were found to act strongly in these ways.[27]

Fere's experiments with the dynamometer and the ergograph have greatly contributed to ill.u.s.trate the stimulating effects of odors. Thus, he found that smelling musk suffices to double muscular effort. With a number of odorous substances he has found that muscular work is temporarily heightened; when taste stimulation was added the increase of energy, notably when using lemon was "colossal." A kind of "sensorial intoxication" could be produced by the inhalation of odors and the whole system stimulated to greater activity; the visual acuity was increased, and electric and general excitability heightened.[28] Such effects may be obtained in perfectly healthy persons, though both Shields and Fere have found that in highly nervous persons the effects are liable to be much greater. It is doubtless on this account that it is among civilized peoples that attention is chiefly directed to perfumes, and that under the conditions of modern life the interest in olfaction and its study has been revived.

It is the genuinely stimulant qualities of odorous substances which led to the widespread use of the more potent among them by ancient physicians, and has led a few modern physicians to employ them still. Thus, vanilla, according to Eloy, deserves to be much more frequently used therapeutically than it is, on account of its excitomotor properties; he states that its qualities as an excitant of s.e.xual desire have long been recognized and that Fonssagrives used to prescribe it for s.e.xual frigidity.[29]

[26]

The opinions of psychologists concerning the aesthetic significance of smell, not on the whole very favorable, are brought together and discussed by J. V. Volkelt, "Der aesthetische Wert der niederen Sinne," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane, 1902, ht. 3.

[27]

T. E. Shields, "The Effect of Odors, etc., upon the Blood-flow," Journal of Experimental Medicine, vol. i, November, 1896. In France, O. Henry and Tardif have made somewhat similar experiments on respiration and circulation. See the latter's Les Odeurs et les Parfums, Chapter III.

[28]

Fere, Sensation et Mouvement, Chapter VI; ib., Comptes Rendus de la Societe de Biologie, November 3, December 15 and 22, 1900.

[29]

Eloy, art. "Vanille," Dictionnaire Encyclopedique des Sciences Medicales.

III.

The Specific Body Odors of Various Peoples-The Negro, etc.-The European-The Ability to Distinguish Individuals by Smell-The Odor of Sanct.i.ty-The Odor of Death-The Odors of Different Parts of the Body-The Appearance of Specific Odors at p.u.b.erty-The Odors of s.e.xual Excitement-The Odors of Menstruation-Body Odors as a Secondary s.e.xual Character-The Custom of Salutation by Smell-The Kiss-s.e.xual Selection by Smell-The Alleged a.s.sociation between Size of Nose and s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual Attraction-In the East, etc.-In Modern Europe-The Odor of the Armpit and its Variations-As a s.e.xual and General Stimulant-Body Odors in Civilization Tend to Cause s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual Inverts.

In approaching the specifically s.e.xual 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 "gout de noisette" which is agreeable rather than otherwise. Monb.u.t.tu 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 j.a.panese,-and there is doubtless some a.s.sociation between the greater hairiness of Europeans and their marked odor, since the sebaceous glands are part of the hair apparatus. A j.a.panese 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 j.a.panese, 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 apt.i.tude 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 Gorres in the second volume of his Christliche Mystik) and which has entered into current phraseology as a merely metaphorical "odor of sanct.i.ty," 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 pa.s.sages from various authors on this point, which he accepts; various writers of more recent date have made similar observations.

The odor of sanct.i.ty 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 s.m.e.g.m.a; (8) in women the odor of the mons veneris, that of v.u.l.v.ar s.m.e.g.m.a, that of v.a.g.i.n.al 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 s.e.xual connections of the body odors and their actual s.e.xual a.s.sociations to-day, that, as Hippocrates long ago noted, it is not until p.u.b.erty that they a.s.sume 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 p.u.b.erty, and Kaan, in his Psychopathia s.e.xualis, remarked that at p.u.b.erty "the sweat gives out a more acrid odor resembling musk." In both s.e.xes p.u.b.erty, 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 s.e.xual development of hair and pigment. Venturi, indeed, has, not without reason, described the odor of the body as a secondary s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 b.u.t.ter; 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, Traite 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 Bare, 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 s.e.xual 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 chast.i.ty 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 v.u.l.v.ar orifice-the glandulae vestibulares majores-is to give out an odorous secretion to act as an attraction to the male, this relic of s.e.xual periodicity no longer, however, playing an important part in the human species. The v.u.l.v.ar secretion, however, it may be added, still has a more aromatic odor than the v.a.g.i.n.al secretion, with its simple mucous odor, very clearly perceived during parturition.

It may be added that we still know extremely little concerning the s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual excitement such odor may be persistent, and, according to an ancient observation, a nymphomaniac, whose periods of s.e.xual excitement lasted all through the spring-time, at these periods always emitted a goatlike odor. It has been said (G. Tourdes, art. "Aphrodisie," Dictionnaire Encyclopedique des Sciences Medicales) that the erotic temperament is characterized by a special odor.

If the body odors tend to develop at p.u.b.erty, to be maintained during s.e.xual life, especially in sympathy with conditions of s.e.xual disturbance, and to become diminished in old age, being thus a kind of secondary s.e.xual character, we should expect them to be less marked in those cases in which the primary s.e.xual characters are less marked. It is possible that this is actually the case. Hagen, in his s.e.xuelle Osphresiologie, quotes from Roubaud's Traite 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.

It is thus possible that defective s.e.xual development tends to be a.s.sociated with corresponding olfactory defect. Heschl[37] has reported a case in which absence of both olfactory nerves coincided with defective development of the s.e.xual organs. Fere remarks that the impotent show a repugnance for s.e.xual odors. Dr. Kiernan informs me that in women after ooph.o.r.ectomy he has noted a tendency to diminished (and occasionally increased) sense of smell. These questions, however, await more careful and extended observation.

A very significant transition from the phenomena of personal odor to those of s.e.xual attraction by personal odor is to be found in the fact that among the peoples inhabiting a large part of the world's surface the ordinary salutation between friends is by mutual smelling of the person. In some form or another the method of salutation by applying the nose to the nose, face, or hand of a friend in greeting is found throughout a large part of the Pacific, among the Papuans, the Eskimo, the hill tribes of India, in Africa, and elsewhere.[38] Thus, among a certain hill tribe in India, according to Lewin, they smell a friend's cheek: "in their language, they do not say, 'Give me a kiss,' but they say 'Smell me.'" And on the Gambia, according to F. Moore, "When the men salute the women, they, instead of shaking their hands, put it up to their noses, and smell twice to the back of it." Here we have very clearly a recognition of the emotional value of personal odor widely prevailing throughout the world. The salutation on an olfactory basis may, indeed, be said to be more general than the salutation on a tactile basis on which European handshaking rests, each form involving one of the two most intimate and emotional senses. The kiss may be said to be a development proceeding both from the olfactory and the tactile bases, with perhaps some other elements as well, and is too complex to be regarded as a phenomenon of either purely tactile or purely olfactory origin.[39]

As the sole factor in s.e.xual selection olfaction must be rare. It is said that Asiatic princes have sometimes caused a number of the ladies to race in the seraglio garden until they were heated; their garments have then been brought to the prince, who has selected one of them solely by the odor.[40] There was here a s.e.xual selection mainly by odor. Any exclusive efficacy of the olfactory sense is rare, not so much because the impressions of this sense are inoperative, but because agreeable personal odors are not sufficiently powerful, and the olfactory organ is too obtuse, to enable smell to take precedence of sight. Nevertheless, in many people, it is probable that certain odors, especially those that are correlated with a healthy and s.e.xually desirable person, tend to be agreeable; they are fortified by their a.s.sociation with the loved person, sometimes to an irresistible degree; and their potency is doubtless increased by the fact, to which reference has already been made, that many odors, including some bodily odors, are nervous stimulants.

It is possible that the s.e.xual a.s.sociations of odors have been still further fortified by a tendency to correlation between a high development of the olfactory organ and a high development of the s.e.xual apparatus. An a.s.sociation between a large nose and a large male organ is a very ancient observation and has been verified occasionally in recent times. There is normally at p.u.b.erty a great increase in the septum of the nose, and it is quite conceivable, in view of the sympathy, which, as we shall see, certainly exists between the olfactory and s.e.xual region, that the two regions may develop together under a common influence.

The Romans firmly believed in the connection between a large nose and a large p.e.n.i.s. "Noscitur e naso quanta sit hasta viro," stated Ovid. This belief continued to prevail, especially in Italy, through the middle ages; the physiognomists made much of it, and licentious women (like Joanna of Naples) were, it appears, accustomed to bear it in mind, although disappointment is recorded often to have followed. (See e.g., the quotations and references given by J. N. Mackenzie, "Physiological and Pathological Relations between the Nose and the s.e.xual Apparatus in Man." Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin, No. 82, January, 1898; also Hagen, s.e.xuelle Osphresiologie, pp. 15-19.) A similar belief as to the a.s.sociation between the s.e.xual impulse in women and a long nose was evidently common in England in the sixteenth century, for in Ma.s.singer's Emperor of the East (Act II, Scene I) we read,

"Her nose, which by its length a.s.sures me Of storms at midnight if I fail to pay her The tribute she expects."

At the present day, a proverb of the Venetian people still embodies the belief in the connection between a large nose and a large s.e.xual member.

The probability that such an a.s.sociation tends in many cases to prevail is indicated not only by the beliefs of antiquity, when more careful attention was paid to these matters, but by the testimony of various modern observers, although it does not appear that any series of exact observations have yet been made.

It may be noted that Marro, in his careful anthropological study of criminals (I Caratteri dei Delinquenti), found no cla.s.s of criminals with so large a proportion alike of anomalies of the nose and anomalies of the genital organs as s.e.xual offenders.

However this may be, it is less doubtful that there is a very intimate relation both in men and women between the olfactory mucous membrane of the nose and the whole genital apparatus, that they frequently show a sympathetic action, that influences acting on the genital sphere will affect the nose, and occasionally, it is probable, influences acting on the nose reflexly affect the genital sphere. To discuss these relationships would here be out of place, since specialists are not altogether in agreement concerning the matter. A few are inclined to regard the a.s.sociation as extremely intimate, so that each region is sensitive even to slight stimuli applied to the other region, while, on the other hand, many authorities ignore altogether the question of the relationship. It would appear, however, that there really is, in a considerable number of people at all events, a reflex connection of this kind. It has especially been noted that in many cases congestion of the nose precedes menstruation.

Bleeding of the nose is specially apt to occur at p.u.b.erty and during adolescence, while in women it may take the place of menstruation and is sometimes more apt to occur at the menstrual periods; disorders of the nose have also been found to be aggravated at these periods. It has even been possible to control bleeding of the nose, both in men and women, by applying ice to the s.e.xual regions. In both men and women, again, cases have been recorded in which s.e.xual excitement, whether of coitus or masturbation, has been followed by bleeding of the nose. In numerous cases it is followed by slight congestive conditions of the nasal pa.s.sages and especially by sneezing. Various authors have referred to this phenomenon; I am acquainted with a lady in whom it is fairly constant.[41] Fere records the case of a lady, a nervous subject, who began to experience intense spontaneous s.e.xual excitement shortly after marriage, accompanied by much secretion from the nose.[42] J. N. Mackenzie is acquainted with a number of such cases, and he considers that the popular expression "bride's cold" indicates that this effect of strong s.e.xual excitement is widely recognized.

The late Professor Hack, of Freiburg, in 1884, called general medical attention to the intimate connection between the nose and states of nervous hyperexcitability in various parts of the body, although such a connection had been recognized for many centuries in medical literature. While Hack and his disciples thus gave prominence to this a.s.sociation, they undoubtedly greatly exaggerated its importance and significance. (Sir Felix Semon, British Medical Journal, November 9, 1901.) Even many workers who have more recently further added to our knowledge have also, as sometimes happens with enthusiasts, unduly strained their own data. Starting from the fact that in women during menstruation examination of the nose reveals a degree of congestion not found during the rest of the month, Fliess (Die Beziehungen zwischen Nase und Weiblichen Geschlechtsorganen, 1897), with the help of a number of elaborate and prolonged observations, has reached conclusions which, while they seem to be hazardous at some points, have certainly contributed to build up our knowledge of this obscure subject. Schiff (Wiener klinische Wochenschrift, 1900, p. 58, summarized in British Medical Journal, February 16, 1901), starting from a skeptical standpoint, has confirmed some of Fliess's results, and in a large number of cases controlled painful menstruation by painting with cocaine the so-called "genital spots" in the nose, all possibility of suggestion being avoided. Ries, of Chicago, has been similarly successful with the method of Fliess (American Gynaecology, vol. iii, No. 4, 1903). Benedikt (Wiener medicinische Wochenschrift, No. 8, 1901, summarized in Journal of Medical Science, October, 1901), while pointing out that the nose is not the only organ in sympathetic relation with the s.e.xual sphere, suggests that the mechanism of the relationship is involved in the larger problem of the harmony in growth and in nutrition of the different parts of the organism. In this way, probably, we may attach considerable significance to the existence of a kind of erectile tissue in the nose.

An interesting example of a reflex influence from the nose affecting the genital sphere has been brought forward by Dr. E. S. Talbot, of Chicago: "A 56-year-old man was operated on (September 1, 1903) for the removal of the left cartilage of the septum of the nose owing to a previous traumatic fracture at the sixteenth year. No pain was experienced until two years ago, when a continual soreness occurred at the apical end of the fracture during the winter months. The operation was decided upon fearing more serious complications. The parts were cocainized. No pain was experienced in the operation except at one point at the lower posterior portion near the floor of the nose. A profound shock to the general system followed. The reflex influence of the pain upon the genital organs caused s.e.m.e.n to flow continually for three weeks. Treatment of general motor irritability with camphor mon.o.bromate and conium, on consultation with Dr. Kiernan, checked the flow. The discharge produced spinal neurasthenia. The legs and feet felt heavy. Erythromelalgia caused uneasiness. The patient walked with difficulty. The tired feeling in the feet and limbs was quite noticeable four months after the operation, although the pain had, to a great extent diminished." (Chicago Academy of Medicine, January, 1904, and private letter.)

J. N. Mackenzie has brought together a great many original observations, together with interesting quotations from old medical literature, in his two papers: "The Pathological Nasal Reflex" (New York Medical Journal, August 20, 1887) and "The Physiological and Pathological Relations between the Nose and the s.e.xual Apparatus of Man" (Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin, January 1, 1898). A number of cases have also been brought together from the literature by G. Endriss in his Inaugural Dissertation, Die bisherigen Beobachtungen von Physiologischen und Pathologischen Beziehungen der oberen Luftwege zu den s.e.xualorganen, Teil. II, Wurzburg, 1892.

The intimate a.s.sociation between the s.e.xual centers and the olfactory tract is well ill.u.s.trated by the fact that this primitive and ancient a.s.sociation tends to come to the surface in insanity. It is recognized by many alienists that insanity of a s.e.xual character is specially liable to be a.s.sociated with hallucinations of smell.

Many eminent alienists in various countries are very decidedly of the opinion that there is a special tendency to the a.s.sociation of olfactory hallucinations with s.e.xual manifestations, and, although one or two authorities have expressed doubt on the matter, the available evidence clearly indicates such an a.s.sociation. Hallucinations of smell are comparatively rare as compared to hallucinations of sight and hearing; they are commoner in women than in men and they not infrequently occur at periods of s.e.xual disturbance, at adolescence, in puerperal fever, at the change of life, in women with ovarian troubles, and in old people troubled with s.e.xual desires or remorse for such desires. They have often been noted as specially frequent in cases of excessive masturbation.

Krafft-Ebing, who found olfactory hallucinations common in various s.e.xual states, considers that they are directly dependent on s.e.xual excitement (Allgemeine Zeitschrift fur Psychiatrie, bd. 34, ht. 4, 1877). Conolly Norman believes in a distinct and frequent a.s.sociation between olfactory hallucinations and s.e.xual disturbance (Journal of Mental Science, July, 1899, p. 532). Savage is also impressed by the close a.s.sociation between s.e.xual disturbance or changes in the reproductive organs and hallucinations of smell as well as of touch. He has found that persistent hallucinations of smell disappeared when a diseased ovary was removed, although the patient remained insane. He considers that such hallucinations of smell are allied to reversions. (G. H. Savage, "Smell, Hallucinations of," Tuke's Dictionary of Psychological Medicine; cf. the same author's manual of Insanity and Allied Neuroses.) Matusch, while not finding olfactory hallucinations common at the climacteric, states that when they are present they are connected with uterine trouble and s.e.xual craving. He finds them more common in young women. (Matusch, "Der Einfluss des Climacterium auf Entstchung und Form der Geistesstorung," Allgemeine Zeitschrift fur Psychiatrie, vol. xlvi, ht. 4). Fere has related a significant case of a young man in whom hallucinations of smell accompanied the s.e.xual o.r.g.a.s.m; he subsequently developed epilepsy, to which the hallucination then const.i.tuted the aura (Comptes Rendus de la Societe de Biologie, December, 1896). The prevalence of a s.e.xual element in olfactory hallucinations has been investigated by Bullen, who examined into 95 cases of hallucinations of smell among the patients in several asylums. (In a few cases there were reasons for believing that peripheral conditions existed which would render these hallucinations more strictly illusions.) Of these, 64 were women. Sixteen of the women were climacteric cases, and 3 of them had s.e.xual hallucinations or delusions. Fourteen other women (chiefly cases of chronic delusional insanity) had s.e.xual delusions. Altogether, 31 men and women had s.e.xual delusions. This is a large proportion. Bullen is not, however, inclined to admit any direct connection between the reproductive system and the sense of smell. He finds that other hallucinations are very frequently a.s.sociated with the olfactory hallucinations, and considers that the co-existence of olfactory and s.e.xual troubles simply indicates a very deep and widespread nervous disturbance. (F. St. John Bullen, "Olfactory Hallucinations in the Insane," Journal of Mental Science, July, 1899.) In order to elucidate the matter fully we require further precise inquiries on the lines Bullen has laid down.

It may be of interest to note, in this connection, that smell and taste hallucinations appear to be specially frequent in forms of religious insanity. Thus, Dr. Zurcher, in her inaugural dissertation on Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc, Leipzig, 1895, p. 72), estimates that on the average in such insanity nearly 50 per cent, of the hallucinations affect smell and taste; she refers also to the olfactory hallucinations of great religious leaders, Francis of a.s.sisi, Katherina Emmerich, Lazzaretti, and the Anabaptists.

It may well be, as Zwaardemaker has suggested in his Physiologie des Geruchs, that the nasal congestion at menstruation and similar phenomena are connected with that a.s.sociation of smell and s.e.xuality which is observable throughout the whole animal world, and that the congestion brings about a temporary increase of olfactory sensitiveness during the stage of s.e.xual excitation.[43] Careful investigation of olfactory acuteness would reveal the existence of such menstrual heightening of its acuity.

In a few exceptional, but still quite healthy people, smell would appear to possess an emotional predominance which it cannot be said to possess in the average person. These exceptional people are of what Binet in his study of s.e.xual fetichism calls olfactive type; such persons form a group which, though of smaller size and less importance, is fairly comparable to the well-known groups of visual type, of auditory type, and of psych.o.m.otor type. Such people would be more attentive to odors, more moved by olfactory sympathies and antipathies, than are ordinary people. For these, it may well be, the supremacy accorded to olfactory influences in Jager's Entdeckung der Seele, though extravagantly incorrect for ordinary persons, may appear quite reasonable.

It is certain also that a great many neurasthenic people, and particularly those who are s.e.xually neurasthenic, are peculiarly susceptible to olfactory influences. A number of eminent poets and novelists-especially, it would appear, in France-seem to be in this case. Baudelaire, of all great poets, has most persistently and most elaborately emphasized the imaginative and emotional significance of odor; the Fleurs du Mal and many of the Pet.i.ts Poemes en Prose are, from this point of view, of great interest. There can be no doubt that in Baudelaire's own imaginative and emotional life the sense of smell played a highly important part; and that, in his own words, odor was to him what music is to others. Throughout Zola's novels-and perhaps more especially in La Faute de l'Abbe Mouret-there is an extreme insistence on odors of every kind. Prof. Leopold Bernard wrote an elaborate study of this aspect of Zola's work[44]; he believed that underlying Zola's interest in odors there was an abnormally keen olfactory sensibility and large development of the olfactory region of the brain. Such a supposition is, however, unnecessary, and, as a matter of fact, a careful examination of Zola's olfactory sensibility, conducted by M. Pa.s.sy, showed that it was somewhat below normal.[45] At the same time it was shown that Zola was really a person of olfactory psychic type, with a special attention to odors and a special memory for them; as is frequently the case with perfumers with less than normal olfactory acuity he possessed a more than normal power of discriminating odors; it is possible that in early life his olfactory acuity may also have been above normal. In the same way Nietzsche, in his writings, shows a marked sensibility, and especially antipathy, as regards odors, which has by some been regarded as an index to a real physical sensibility of abnormal keenness; according to Mobius, however, there was no reason for supposing this to be the case.[46] Huysmans, who throughout his books reveals a very intense preoccupation with the exact shades of many kinds of sensory impressions, and an apparently abnormally keen sensibility to them, has shown a great interest in odors, more especially in an oft-quoted pa.s.sage in A Rebours. The blind Milton of "Paradise Lost" (as the late Mr. Grant Allen once remarked to me), dwells much on scents; in this case it is doubtless to the blindness and not to any special organic predisposition that we must attribute this direction of sensory attention.[47] Among our older English poets, also, Herrick displays a special interest in odors with a definite realization of their s.e.xual attractiveness.[48] Sh.e.l.ley, who was alive to so many of the unusual aesthetic aspects of things, often shows an enthusiastic delight in odors, more especially those of flowers. It may, indeed, be said that most poets-though to a less degree than those I have mentioned-devote a special attention to odors, and, since it has been possible to describe smell as the sense of imagination, this need not surprise us. That Shakespeare, for instance, ranked this sense very high indeed is shown by various pa.s.sages in his works and notably by Sonnet LIV: "O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem?"-in which he implicitly places the attraction of odor on at least as high a level as that of vision.[49]

A neurasthenic sensitiveness to odors, specially s.e.xual odors, is frequently accompanied by lack of s.e.xual vigor. In this way we may account for the numerous cases in which old men in whom s.e.xual desire survives the loss of virile powers-probably somewhat abnormal persons at the outset-find satisfaction in s.e.xual odors. Here, also, we have the basis for olfactory fetichism. In such fetichism the odor of the woman alone, whoever she may be and however unattractive she may be, suffices to furnish complete s.e.xual satisfaction. In many, although not all, of those cases in which articles of women's clothing become the object of fetichistic attraction, there is certainly an olfactory element due to the personal odor attaching to the garments.[50]

Olfactory influences play a certain part in various s.e.xually abnormal tendencies and practices which do not proceed from an exclusively olfactory fascination. Thus, c.u.n.n.i.l.i.n.g.u.s and f.e.l.l.a.t.i.o derive part of their attraction, more especially in some individuals, from a predilection for the odors of the s.e.xual parts. (See, e.g., Moll, Untersuchungen uber die Libido s.e.xualis, bd. 1, p. 134.) In many cases smell plays no part in the attraction; "I enjoy c.u.n.n.i.l.i.n.g.u.s, if I like the girl very much," a correspondent writes, "in spite of the smell." We may a.s.sociate this impulse with the prevalence of these practices among s.e.xual inverts, in whom olfactory attractions are often specially marked. Those individuals, also, who are s.e.xually affected by the urinary and alvine excretions ("renifleurs," "stereoraires," etc.) are largely, though not necessarily altogether, moved by olfactory impressions. The attraction was, however, exclusively olfactory in the case of the young woman recorded by Moraglia (Archivio di Psichiatria, 1892, p. 267), who was irresistibly excited by the odor of the fermented urine of men, and possibly also in the case narrated to Moraglia by Prof. L. Bianchi (ib. p. 568), in which a wife required flatus from her husband.

The s.e.xual pleasure derived from partial strangulation (discussed in the study of "Love and Pain" in a previous volume) may be a.s.sociated with heightened olfactory s.e.xual excitation. Dr. Kiernan, who points this out to me, has investigated a few neuropathic patients who like to have their necks squeezed, as they express it, and finds that in the majority the olfactory sensibility is thus intensified.

Even in ordinary normal persons, however, there can be no doubt that personal odor tends to play a not inconsiderable part in s.e.xual attractions and s.e.xual repulsions. As a s.e.xual excitant, indeed, it comes far behind the stimuli received through the sense of sight. The comparative bluntness of the sense of smell in man makes it difficult for olfactory influence to be felt, as a rule, until the preliminaries of courtship are already over; so that it is impossible for smell ever to possess the same significance in s.e.xual attraction in man that it possesses in the lower animals. With that reservation there can be no doubt that odor has a certain favorable or unfavorable influence in s.e.xual relationships in all human races from the lowest to the highest. The Polynesian spoke with contempt of those women of European race who "have no smell," and in view of the p.r.o.nounced personal odor of so many savage peoples as well as of the careful attention which they so often pay to odors, we may certainly a.s.sume, even in the absence of much definite evidence, that smell counts for much in their s.e.xual relationships. This is confirmed by such practices as that found among some primitive peoples-as, it is stated, in the Philippines-of lovers exchanging their garments to have the smell of the loved one about them. In the barbaric stages of society this element becomes self-conscious and is clearly avowed; personal odors are constantly described with complacency, sometimes as mingled with the lavish use of artificial perfumes, in much of the erotic literature produced in the highest stages of barbarism, especially by Eastern peoples living in hot climates; it is only necessary to refer to the Song of Songs, the Arabian Nights, and the Indian treatises on love. Even in some parts of Europe the same influence is recognized in the crudest animal form, and Krauss states that among the Southern Slavs it is sometimes customary to leave the s.e.xual parts unwashed because a strong odor of these parts is regarded as a s.e.xual stimulant. Under the usual conditions of life in Europe personal odor has sunk into the background; this has been so equally under the conditions of cla.s.sic, mediaeval, and modern life. Personal odor has been generally regarded as unaesthetic; it has, for the most part, only been mentioned to be reprobated, and even those poets and others who during recent centuries have shown a sensitive delight and interest in odors-Herrick, Sh.e.l.ley, Baudelaire, Zola, and Huysmans-have seldom ventured to insist that a purely natural and personal odor can be agreeable. The fact that it may be so, and that for most people such odors cannot be a matter of indifference in the most intimate of all relationships, is usually only to be learned casually and incidentally. There can be no doubt, however, that, as Kiernan points out, the extent to which olfaction influences the s.e.xual sphere in civilized man has been much underestimated. We need not, therefore, be surprised at the greater interest which has recently been taken in this subject. As usually happens, indeed, there has been in some writers a tendency to run to the opposite extreme, and we cannot, with Gustav Jager, regard the s.e.xual instinct as mainly or altogether an olfactory matter.