At all periods perfumes seem to have been more or less adopted as a luxury
among the wealthy and fashionable. Tradition states that they were
frequently rendered instrumental to sinister purposes, as the vehicle of
poisonous substances. Historians relate that the Emperor Henri VI. and a
prince of Savoy, were destroyed with perfumed gloves. Jeanne d'Albret,
Queen of Navarre, and mother of Henri IV., died from the poisonous effect
of gloves purchased from the noted Rene, perfumer and confidential agent
of Catherine de Medicis. Lancelot, King of Naples, was destroyed by a
scented handkerchief prepared by a Florentine lady. Pope Clement VII. sunk
under the baneful effluvia of a torch that was carried before him; and
Mathioli relates, that nosegays thus impregnated have been frequently
known to prove fatal. It is certain that, without the aid of venenous
substances, various flowers have caused serious accidents. Barton tells us
that the _magnolia glauca_ occasioned a paroxysm of fever, and increased
the severity of an attack of gout. Jacquin had seen the _lobelia
longiflora_ producing a sense of suffocation; and the _nerium oleander_ in
a close chamber, has caused death. The injurious effects of bulbous
flowers in giving rise to violent headachs, giddiness, and even fainting,
are generally known. The horror roses inspire to the Roman ladies is
scarcely credible; and Cromer affirms that it was to the odour of that
ornament of our gardens that the death of one of the daughters of Nicolas
I., Count of Salm, and of a Polish bishop, was attributed. The sympathetic
effect that this flower can create is illustrated by Capellini, who saw a
lady fall into a syncope on perceiving a rose in a girl's bosom, although
it turned out to be an artificial one. The partiality or antipathy to
certain odours is equally unaccountable, for the Italian ladies, who dread
the rose, delight in the disgusting aroma of rue, which they carry about
as a salubrious plant, that, according to their notions, dispels the
_cattiva aria_, although it is not impossible that they might fancy it
possessed of those salutary qualities to which Ovid had alluded:
Utilius summas acuentes lumina rutas,
Et quidquid veneri corpora nostra negat.
Rue, according to Serenus Samonicus, was one of the ingredients of the
fabled antidote of Mithridates, which he thus describes:
Antidotus vero multis Mithridatica fertur
Consociata modis, sed magnus Scrinia regis
Cum raperit victor, vilem deprendit in illis
Synthesim, et vulgata satis medicamina risit.
Bis denum _Rutae_ folium, salis et breve granum,
Juglandesque duas, totidem cum corpore ficus;
Haec oriente die, parco conspersa Lycaeo,
Sumebat, metuens dederat quae pocula mater.
The ancients were so fond of perfumes, that they scented their persons and
garments, their vases, their domestic vessels, and their military
insignia. They not only considered aromatic emanations as acceptable to
the gods, and therefore used them in their temples, as they are at present
by the Roman Catholics, but as announcing the presence of their
divinities; and Virgil thus speaks of Venus:
--------Avertens rosea cervice refulsit,
Ambrosiaeque comae divinum vertice odorem
Spiravere.
Chaplets of roses were invariably worn in festivals and ceremonies; and
wines were also aromatised with various odoriferous substances. The Franks
and the Gauls continued the same custom; and Gregory of Tours called these
artificial-flavoured liquors, _Vina odoramentis immixta_. To this day,
the manipulation of French wines gives them a fictitious _bouquet_, with
raspberries, orris-root, and divers drugs to suit the British market.
No external sense is so intimately connected with the internal senses as
that of smell; none so powerful in exciting and removing syncope, or more
capable of receiving delicate and delicious impressions: hence Rousseau
has denominated this faculty "_the sense of imagination_." No sensations
can be remembered in so lively a manner as those which are recalled by
peculiar odours, which are frequently known to act in a most energetic
measure upon our physical and moral propensities. How many perfumes excite
a lively feeling of fond regret when reminding us of the beloved one who
was wont to select them, and whom we long to meet again! It is not
improbable that our partiality to the hair of those who are dear to us,
arises from this circumstance. Every individual emits a peculiar odour;
and, according to Plutarch, Alexander was distinguished by the sweet aroma
that he shed. Perhaps the expression, so frequently found in the lives of
the saints, "who die in odour of sanctity," may be referred to a belief
that this peculiar gift was granted to beatitude.
It has been observed, that animals who possess the most acute smell, have
the nasal organs the most extensively developed. The Ethiopians and the
American Indians are remarkable for the acuteness of this sense,
accounting for the wonderful power of tracking their enemies. But although
we may take the peculiar organization of their olfactory organs as being
partly the cause of this keen perceptibility, we must in a great measure
attribute this perfection to their mode of living. Hunting and war are
their chief pursuits, to which they are trained from their earliest
infancy: therefore this perfection may, to a certain extent, be the result
of habit; and the sight and hearing of these wanderers are as singularly
perfect as their smelling. Mr. Savage relates, that a New Zealander heard
the report of a distant gun at sea, or perceived a strange sail, when no
other man on board could discern it. Pallas, in speaking of the Calmucks,
says that many of them can distinguish by smelling at the hole of a fox
whether the animal be there or not; and on their journeys and military
expeditions they often smell out a fire or a camp, and thus seek quarters
for the night or booty. Olaus Borrich informs us, that the guides between
Smyrna, Aleppo, and Babylon, when traversing the desert, ascertain
distances by the smell of the sand. That odours float in the atmospheric
air is obvious; the distance at which they are perceived is incredible.
The spicy breezes of Ceylon are distinguished long before the island is
seen; and it is a well-known fact that vessels have been saved by the
olfactory acuteness of dogs, who, to use the common expression, were
observed to "sniff" the land that had not been descried. As a proof of the
intimate connexion between smell and respiration, when the breath is held
odorous substances are not perceived, and it is only after expiration that
they are again recognised. A proof of this may be easily obtained by
placing the open neck of a small phial containing an essential oil in the
mouth during the acts of inspiration and subsequent expiration. Willis was
the first who observed that, on placing a sapid substance in the mouth,
and at the same time closing the nostrils, the sensation of taste is
suspended; and this observation has given rise to the prevailing opinion
that smelling and tasting are intimately related. Odour which thus
accompanies taste is termed flavour; and the ingenious Dr. Prout has
admirably defined the distinction between taste and flavour, and he
considers the latter an intermediate sensation between taste and smell.
The acuteness of the sensation of smelling in animals is such, that in
many instances our observations have been deemed fabulous. The distance at
which a dog tracks his master is scarcely credible; and it is strange that
the ancients attributed a similar perfection to the goose. Aelian affirms
that the philosopher Lycadeus had one of these birds that found him out
like a dog:
Humanum longe praesentit odorem
Romulidarum acris servator, candidus anser.
Birds of prey will scent the battle-field at prodigious distances, and
they are often seen hovering instinctively over the ground where the
conflict is to supply their festival. Humboldt relates, that in Peru, at
Quito, and in the province of Popayan, when sportsmen wish to obtain that
species of vulture called _vultur gryphus_, they kill a cow or a horse,
and in a short time these sagacious birds crowd to glut their ravenous
appetites. Ancient historians assert that vultures have cleft the air one
hundred and sixty-six leagues to arrive in time to feast upon a battle;
and Pliny boldly affirms that even crows have so acute a sense of
approaching corruption, that they can scent death three days before
dissolution, and generally pay the _moribond_ a visit a day before his
time, not to be disappointed. This notion has become a vulgar prejudice,
as much so, indeed, as the howling of a dog, which is considered in most
countries as foreboding death. In various animals an offensive odour is a
protective gift. The _staphylinus olens_, for instance, sheds an effluvium
which effectually keeps away the birds who would otherwise pounce upon
him. But of all singular perfections in the sense of smelling that were
ever recorded, may be cited the monk of Prague and the blind man in the
Quinze-vingt Hospital of Paris, who possessed the faculty of ascertaining
the presence of virginity whenever a female had the luck of being
introduced to them.
Many curious instances are recorded, where the loss of one sense has added
to the acuteness of others. Dr. Moyse the well-known blind philosopher,
could distinguish a black dress on his friends by the smell. Professor
Upham of the United States, mentions a blind girl who could select her own
articles out of a basket of linen brought in by the laundress.
These anomalous senses, for such they may be called, are as wonderful as
they are inexplicable, and appear to arise from a peculiar sensibility of
the organs of smell, which renders them capable of being stimulated in a
peculiar manner, that no language can express or define. It is scent, no
doubt, that gives the migratory power to various animals; "which enables
them," to use the words of Dr. Mason Good, "to steer from climate to
climate, and from coast to coast; and which, if possessed by man, might
perhaps render superfluous the use of the magnet, and considerably
infringe upon the science of logarithms? Whence comes it that the
fieldfare and red-wing, that pass the summer in Norway, or the wild-duck
and merganser, that in like manner summer in the woods and lakes of
Lapland, are able to track the pathless void of the atmosphere with the
utmost nicety, and arrive on our own coasts uniformly in the beginning of
October."[11]
This sense is not limited to migratory animals, as instanced by
carrier-pigeons, who have been known not only to carry bags in a straight
line from city to city, but traverse the city with an undeviating flight.
Surely this faculty must be attributed to the sense of smell; it can
scarcely be referred to sight or hearing; although the wonders of the
creation are such, that we can no more account for these peculiar
attributes refused to the lords of the creation, than for the power of the
lobster, who not only can reproduce his claws when deprived of them by
accident, but cast them off to extricate himself, from the captor's grasp.
The _Tipula pectiniformis_, or the daddy long-legs of our infant amusement
and amazement, possesses the same renovating faculties. The gluttonous
gad-fly may be cut to pieces without any apparent interruption in his
meal, when fastened to one's hand: the polype does not seem to be at all
discomposed when we turn him inside out; and, when divided into various
sections, each portion is endowed with an instinctive and reformative
power of multiplying his species in countless numbers! The diversity of
our olfactory fancies is unaccountable and only illustrates the words of
Petronius,
Non omnibus unum est quod placet; hic spinas, colligit ille rosas.