Studies in the Psychology of Sex Volume Iv Part 6

Hagen quotes testimonies on this point, s.e.xuelle Osphresiologie, p. 173. The negro, Castellani states, considers that Europeans have a smell of death.

[33]

Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition, vol. ii, p. 181.

[34]

Waitz, Introduction to Anthropology, p. 103.

[35]

Monin, Les Odeurs du Corps Humain, second edition, Paris, 1886, discusses briefly but comprehensively the normal and more especially the pathological odors of the body and of its secretions and excretions.

[36]

Venturi, Degenerazione Psicho-sessuale, p. 417.

[37]

Quoted by Fere, L'Instinct s.e.xuel, 1902, p. 133.

[38]

H. Ling Roth, "On Salutations," Journal of the Anthropological Inst.i.tute, November, 1889.

[39]

See Appendix A: "The Origins of the Kiss."

[40]

See, e.g., pa.s.sage quoted by I. Bloch, Beitrage zur aetiologie der Psychopathia s.e.xualis, Teil II, p. 205.

[41]

It must at the same time be remembered that the more or less degree of exposure involved by s.e.xual intercourse is itself a cause of nasal congestion and sneezing.

[42]

Fere, Pathologie des Emotions, p. 81

[43]

J. N. Mackenzie similarly suggests (Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin, No. 82, 1898) that "irritation and congestion of the nasal mucous membrane precede, or are the excitants of, the olfactory impression that forms the connecting link between the sense of smell and erethism of the reproductive organs exhibited in the lower animals."

[44]

Les Odeurs dans les Romans de Zola, Montpellier, 1889.

[45]

Toulouse, Emile Zola, pp. 163-165, 173-175.

[46]

P. J. Mobius, Das Pathologische bei Nietzsche.

[47]

Moll has a pa.s.sage on the sense of smell in the blind, more especially in s.e.xual respects, Untersuchungen uber die Libido s.e.xualis, bd. 1, pp. 137 et seq.

[48]

See, for instance, his poem, "Love Perfumes all Parts," in which he declares that "Hands and thighs and legs are all richly aromatical." And compare the lyrics ent.i.tled "A Song to the Maskers," "On Julia's Breath," "Upon Julia's Unlacing Herself," "Upon Julia's Sweat," and "To Mistress Anne Soame."

[49]

There are various indications that Goethe was attentive to the attraction of personal odors; and that he experienced this attraction himself is shown by the fact that, as he confessed, when he once had to leave Weimar on an official journey for two days he took a bodice of Frau von Stein's away in order to carry the scent of her body with him.

[50]

Hagen has brought together from the literature of the subject a number of typical cases of olfactory fetichism, s.e.xuelle Osphresiologie, 1901, pp. 82 et seq.

[51]

Moll's inquiries among normal persons have also shown that few people are conscious of odor as a s.e.xual attraction. (Untersuchungen uber die Libido s.e.xualis. Bd. I, p. 133.)

[52]

Marro, La, p.u.b.erta, 1898, Chapter II. Tardif found in boys that perfumes exerted little or no influence on circulation and respiration before p.u.b.erty, though his observations on this point were too few to carry weight.

IV.

The Influence of Perfumes-Their Aboriginal Relations.h.i.+p to s.e.xual Body Odors-This True even of the Fragrance of Flowers-The Synthetic Manufacture of Perfumes-The s.e.xual Effects of Perfumes-Perfumes perhaps Originally Used to Heighten the Body Odors-The Special Significance of the Musk Odor-Its Wide Natural Diffusion in Plants and Animals and Man-Musk a Powerful Stimulant-Its Widespread Use as a Perfume-Peau d'Espagne-The Smell of Leather and its Occasional s.e.xual Effects-The s.e.xual Influence of the Odors of Flowers-The Ident.i.ty of many Plant Odors with Certain Normal and Abnormal Body Odors-The Smell of s.e.m.e.n in this Connection.

So far we have been mainly concerned with purely personal odors. It is, however, no longer possible to confine the discussion of the s.e.xual significance of odor within the purely animal limit. The various characteristics of personal odor which have been noted-alike those which tend to make it repulsive and those which tend to make it attractive-have led to the use of artificial perfumes, to heighten the natural odor when it is regarded as attractive, to disguise it when it is regarded as repellent; while at the same time, happily covering both of these impulses, has developed the pure delight in perfume for its own agreeableness, the aesthetic side of olfaction. In this way-although in a much less constant and less elaborate manner-the body became adorned to the sense of smell just as by clothing and ornament it is adorned to the sense of sight.

But-and this is a point of great significance from our present standpoint-we do not really leave the s.e.xual sphere by introducing artificial perfumes. The perfumes which we extract from natural products, or, as is now frequently the case, produce by chemical synthesis, are themselves either actually animal s.e.xual odors or allied in character or composition, to the personal odors they are used to heighten or disguise. Musk is the product of glands of the male Moschus moschiferus which correspond to preputial sebaceous glands; castoreum is the product of similar s.e.xual glands in the beaver, and civet likewise from the civet; ambergris is an intestinal calculus found in the r.e.c.t.u.m of the cachelot.[53] Not only, however, are nearly all the perfumes of animal origin, in use by civilized man, odors which have a specially s.e.xual object among the animals from which they are derived, but even the perfumes of flowers may be said to be of s.e.xual character. They are given out at the reproductive period in the lives of plants, and they clearly have very largely as their object an appeal to the insects who secure plant fertilization, such appeal having as its basis the fact that among insects themselves olfactory sensibility has in many cases been developed in their own mating.[54] There is, for example, a moth in which both s.e.xes are similarly and inconspicuously marked, but the males diffuse an agreeable odor, said to be like pineapple, which attracts the females.[55] If, therefore, the odors of flowers have developed because they proved useful to the plant by attracting insects or other living creatures, it is obvious that the advantage would lie with those plants which could put forth an animal s.e.xual odor of agreeable character, since such an odor would prove fascinating to animal creatures. We here have a very simple explanation of the fundamental ident.i.ty of odors in the animal and vegetable worlds. It thus comes about that from a psychological point of view we are not really entering a new field when we begin to discuss the influence of perfumes other than those of the animal body. We are merely concerned with somewhat more complex or somewhat more refined s.e.xual odors; they are not specifically different from the human odors and they mingle with them harmoniously. Popular language bears witness to the truth of this statement, and the normal and abnormal human odors, as we have already seen, are constantly compared to artificial, animal, and plant odors, to chloroform, to musk, to violet, to mention only those similitudes which seem to occur most frequently.

The methods now employed for obtaining the perfumes universally used in civilized lands are three: (1) the extraction of odoriferous compounds from the neutral products in which they occur; (2) the artificial preparation of naturally occurring odoriferous compounds by synthetic processes; (3) the manufacture of materials which yield odors resembling those of pleasant smelling natural objects. (See, e.g., "Natural and Artificial Perfumes," Nature, December 27, 1900.) The essential principles of most of our perfumes belong to the complex cla.s.s of organic compounds known as terpenes. During recent years a number of the essential elements of natural perfumes have been studied, in many cases the methods of preparing them artificially discovered, and they are largely replacing the use of natural perfumes not only for soaps, etc., but for scent essences, though it appears to be very difficult to imitate exactly the delicate fragrance achieved by Nature. Artificial musk was discovered accidentally by Bauer when studying the butyltoluenes contained in a resin extractive. Vanillin, the odoriferous principle of the vanilla bean, is an aldehyde which was first artificially prepared by Tiemann and Haarmann in 1874 by oxidizing coniferin, a glucoside contained in the sap of various coniferae, but it now appears to be usually manufactured from eugenol, a phenol contained in oil of cloves. Piperonal, an aldehyde closely allied to vanillin, is used in perfumery under the name of heliotropin and is prepared from oil of sa.s.safras and oil of camphor. c.u.marine, the material to which tonka bean, sweet woodruff, and new-mown hay owe their characteristic odors, was synthetically prepared by W. H. Parkin in 1868 by heating sodiosalicylic aldehyde with acetic anhydride, though now more cheaply prepared from an herb growing in Florida. Irone, which has the perfume of violets, was isolated in 1893 from a ketone contained in orris-root; and ionone, another ketone which has a very closely similar odor of fresh violets and was isolated after some years' further work, is largely used in the preparation of violet perfume. Irone and ionone are closely similar in composition to oil of turpentine which when taken into the body is partly converted into perfume and gives a strong odor of violets to the urine. "Little has yet been accomplished toward ascertaining the relation between the odor and the chemical const.i.tution of substances in general. Hydrocarbons as a cla.s.s possess considerable similarity in odor, so also do the organic sulphides and, to a much smaller extent, the ketones. The subject waits for some one to correlate its various physiological, psychological and physical aspects in the same way that Helmholtz did for sound. It seems, as yet, impossible to a.s.sign any probable reason to the fact that many substances have a pleasant odor. It may, however, be worth suggesting that certain compounds, such as the volatile sulphides and the indoles, have very unpleasant odors because they are normal const.i.tuents of mammalian excreta and of putrefied animal products; the repulsive odors may be simply necessary results of evolutionary processes." (Loc. cit., Nature, December 27, 1900.)

Many of the perfumes in use are really combinations of a great many different odors in varying proportions, such as oil of rose, lavender oil, ylang-ylang, etc. The most highly appreciated perfumes are often made up of elements which in stronger proportion would be regarded as highly unpleasant.

In the study and manufacture of perfumes Germany and France have taken the lead in recent times. The industry is one of great importance. In France alone the trade in perfumes amounts to 4,000,000.

It is doubtless largely owing to the essential and fundamental ident.i.ty of odors-to the chemical resemblances even of odors from the most widely remote sources-that we find that perfumes in many cases have the same s.e.xual effects as are primitively possessed by the body odors. In northern countries, where the use of perfumes is chiefly cultivated by women, it is by women that this s.e.xual influence is most liable to be felt. In the South and in the East it appears to be at least equally often experienced by men. Thus, in Italy Mantegazza remarks that "many men of strong s.e.xual temperament cannot visit with impunity a laboratory of essences and perfumes."[56] In the East we find it stated in the Islamic book ent.i.tled The Perfumed Garden of Sheik Nefzaoui that the use of perfumes by women, as well as by men, excites to the generative act. It is largely in reliance on this fact that in many parts of the world, especially among Eastern peoples and occasionally among ourselves in Europe, women have been accustomed to perfume the body and especially the v.u.l.v.a.[57]

It seems highly probable that, as has been especially emphasized by Hagen, perfumes were primitively used by women, not as is sometimes the case in civilization, with the idea of disguising any possible natural odor, but with the object of heightening and fortifying the natural odor.[58] If the primitive man was inclined to disparage a woman whose odor was slight or imperceptible,-turning away from her with contempt, as the Polynesian turned away from the ladies of Sydney: "They have no smell!"-women would inevitably seek to supplement any natural defects in this respect, and to accentuate their odorous qualities, in the same way as by corsets and bustles, even in civilization, they have sought to accentuate the s.e.xual saliencies of their bodies. In this way we may, as Hagen suggests, explain the fact that until recent times the odors preferred by women have not been the most delicate or exquisite, but the strongest, the most animal, the most s.e.xual: musk, castoreum, civet, and ambergris.

In that interesting novel-dealing with the adventures of a Jewish maiden at the Persian court of Xerxes-which under the t.i.tle of Esther has found its way into the Old Testament we are told that it was customary in the royal harem at Shushan to submit the women to a very prolonged course of perfuming before they were admitted to the king: "six months with oil of myrrh and six months with sweet odors." (Esther, Chapter II, v. 12.)

In the Arabian Nights there are many allusions to the use of perfumes by women with a more or less definitely stated aphrodisiacal intent. Thus we read in the story of Kamaralzaman: "With fine incense I will perfume my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, my belly, my whole body, so that my skin may melt more sweetly in thy mouth, O apple of my eye!"

Even among savages the perfuming of the body is sometimes practiced with the object of inducing love in the partner. Sch.e.l.long states that the Papuans of Kaiser Wilhelm's Land rub various fragrant plants into their bodies for this purpose. (Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie, 1899, ht. i, p. 19.) The significance of this practice is more fully revealed by Haddon when studying the Papuans of Torres Straits among whom the initiative in courts.h.i.+p is taken by the women. It was by scenting himself with a pungent odorous substance that a young man indicated that he was ready to be sued by the girls. A man would wear this scent at the back of his neck during a dance in order to attract the attention of a particular girl; it was believed to act with magical certainty, after the manner of a charm (Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, vol. v, pp. 211, 222, and 328).

The perfume which is of all perfumes the most interesting from the present point of view is certainly musk. With ambergris, musk is the chief member of Linnaeus's group of Odores ambrosiacae, a group which in s.e.xual significances, as Zwaardemaker remarks, ranks besides the capryl group of odors. It is a perfume of ancient origin; its name is Persian[59] (indicating doubtless the channel whence it reached Europe) and ultimately derived from the Sanskrit word for t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e in allusion to the fact that it was contained in a pouch removed from the s.e.xual parts of the male musk-deer. Musk odors, however, often of considerable strength, are very widely distributed in Nature, alike among animals and plants. This is indicated by the frequency with which the word "musk" forms part of the names of animals and plants which are by no means always nearly related. We have the musk-ox, the musky mole, several species called musk-rat, the musk-duct, the musk-beetle; while among plants which have received their names from a real or supposed musky odor are, besides several that are called musk-plant, the musk-rose, the musk-hyacinth, the musk-mallow, the musk-orchid, the musk-melon, the musk-cherry, the musk-pear, the musk-plum, muskat and muscatels, musk-seed, musk-tree, musk-wood, etc.[60] But a musky odor is not merely widespread in Nature among plants and the lower animals, it is peculiarly a.s.sociated with man. Incidentally we have already seen how it is regarded as characteristic of some races of man, especially the Chinese. Moreover, the smell of the negress is said to be musky in character, and among Europeans a musky odor is said to be characteristic of blondes. Layc.o.c.k, in his Nervous Diseases of Women, stated his opinion that "the musk odor is certainly the s.e.xual odor of man"; and Fere states that the musk odor is that among natural perfumes most nearly approaching the odor of the s.e.xual secretions. We have seen that the Chinese poet vaunts the musky odor of his mistress's armpits, while another Oriental saying concerning the attractive woman is that "her navel is filled with musk." Persian literature contains many references to musk as an attractive body odor, and Firdusi speaks of a woman's hair as "a crown of musk," while the Arabian poet Motannabi says of his mistress that "her hyacinthine hair smells sweeter than Scythian musk." Galopin stated that he knew women whose natural odor of musk (and less frequently of ambergris) was sufficiently strong to impart to a bath in less than an hour a perfume due entirely to the exhalations of the musky body; it must be added that Galopin was an enthusiast in this matter.

The special significance of musk from our present point of view lies not only in the fact that we here have a perfume, widely scattered throughout nature and often in an agreeable form, which is at the same time a very frequent personal odor in man. Musk is the odor which not only in the animals to which it has given a name, but in many others, is a specifically s.e.xual odor, chiefly emitted during the s.e.xual season. The s.e.xual odors, indeed, of most animals seem to be modifications of musk. The Sphinx moth has a musky odor which is confined to the male and is doubtless s.e.xual. Some lizards have a musky odor which is heightened at the s.e.xual season; crocodiles during the pairing season emit from their submaxillary glands a musky odor which pervades their haunts. In the same way elephants emit a musky odor from their facial glands during the rutting season. The odor of the musk-duck is chiefly confined to the breeding season.[61] The musky odor of the negress is said to be heightened during s.e.xual excitement.

The predominance of musk as a s.e.xual odor is a.s.sociated with the fact that its actual nervous influence, apart from the presence of s.e.xual a.s.sociation, is very considerable. Fere found it to be a powerful muscular stimulant. In former times musk enjoyed a high reputation as a cardiac stimulant; it fell into disuse, but in recent years its use in asthenic states has been revived, and excellent results, it has been claimed, have followed its administration in cases of collapse from Asiatic cholera. For s.e.xual torpor in women it still has (like vanilla and sandal) a certain degree of reputation, though it is not often used, and some of the old Arabian physicians (especially Avicenna) recommended it, with castoreum and myrrh, for amenorrha. Its powerful action is indicated by the experience of Esquirol, who stated that he had seen cases in which sensory stimulation by musk in women during lactation had produced mania. It has always had the reputation, more especially in the Mohammedan East, of being a s.e.xual stimulant to men; "the n.o.blest of perfumes," it is called in El Ktab, "and that which most provokes to venery."

It is doubtless a fact significant of the special s.e.xual effects of musk that, as Layc.o.c.k remarked, in cases of special idiosyncrasy to odors, musk appears to be that odor which is most liked or disliked. Thus, the old English physician Whytt remarked that "several delicate women who could easily bear the stronger smell of tobacco have been thrown into fits by musk, ambergris, or a pale rose."[62] It may be remarked that in the Perfumed Garden of Sheik Nefzaoui it is stated that it is by their s.e.xual effects that perfumes tend to throw women into a kind of swoon, and Lucretius remarks that a woman who smells castoreum, another animal s.e.xual perfume, at the time of her menstrual period may swoon.[63]

Not only is musk the most cherished perfume of the Islamic world, and the special favorite of the Prophet himself, who greatly delighted in perfumes ("I love your world," he is reported to have said in old age, "for its women and its perfumes"),[64] it is the only perfume generally used by the women of a land in which the refinements of life have been carried so far as j.a.pan, and they received it from the Chinese.[65]

Moreover, musk is still the most popular of European perfumes. It is the perfumes containing musk, Piesse states in his well-known book on the Art of Perfumery, which sell best. It is certainly true that in its simple form the odor of musk is not nowadays highly considered in Europe. This fact is connected with the ever-growing refinement in accordance with which the specific odors of the s.e.xual regions in human beings tend to lose their primitive attractiveness and bodily odors generally become mingled with artificial perfumes and so disguised. But, although musk in its simple form, and under its ancient name, has lost its hold in Europe, it is an interesting and significant fact that it is still the perfumes which contain musk that are the most widely popular.

Peau d'Espagne may be mentioned as a highly complex and luxurious perfume, often the favorite scent of sensuous persons, which really owes a large part of its potency to the presence of the crude animal s.e.xual odors of musk and civet. It consists of wash-leather steeped in ottos of neroli, rose, santal, lavender, verbena, bergamot, cloves, and cinnamon, subsequently smeared with civet and musk. It is said by some, probably with a certain degree of truth, that Peau d'Espagne is of all perfumes that which most nearly approaches the odor of a woman's skin; whether it also suggests the odor of leather is not so clear.