Studies in the psychology of sex, volume 4 (of 6) by Havelock Ellis. - HTML preview

PLEASE NOTE: This is an HTML preview only and some elements such as links or page numbers may be incorrect.
Download the book in PDF, ePub, Kindle for a complete version.

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

anæsthetics, 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]

Féré's experiments with the dynamometer and the ergograph have greatly

contributed to illustrate 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 Féré 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 sexual desire have long been

recognized and that Fonssagrives used to prescribe it for sexual

frigidity.[29]

FOOTNOTES:

[26] The opinions of psychologists concerning the æsthetic significance of

smell, not on the whole very favorable, are brought together and discussed

by J.V. Volkelt, "Der Æsthetische Wert der niederen Sinne," _Zeitschrift

für 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] Féré, _Sensation et Mouvement_, Chapter VI; ib., _Comptes Rendus de

la Société de Biologie_, November 3, December 15 and 22, 1900.

[29] 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.

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.

It is thus possible that defective sexual development tends to be

associated with corresponding olfactory defect.

Heschl[37] has reported a

case in which absence of both olfactory nerves coincided with defective

development of the sexual organs. Féré remarks that the impotent show a

repugnance for sexual odors. Dr. Kiernan informs me that in women after

oöphorectomy 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 sexual 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 sexual 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 sexual 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 sexually desirable person, tend to be

agreeable; they are fortified by their association 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 sexual associations 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 sexual apparatus. An

association 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 puberty 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 sexual 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 penis. "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 Sexual Apparatus

in Man." _Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin_, No. 82, January,

1898; also Hagen, _Sexuelle Osphrésiologie_, pp. 15-19.) A

similar belief as to the association between the sexual impulse

in women and a long nose was evidently common in England in t