Aromatics and the Soul: A Study of Smells/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V
SMELL IN FOLK-LORE, RELIGION, AND HISTORY
Evidence of olfactory influences is encountered in folk-lore not infrequently, particularly in connection with primitive medicine, and survivals of old olfactory methods of treatment are still extant, not only in the doings of the wise women of our remoter country villages, but also, as we shall see, in modern scientific medicine.
Treatment by fumigation is perhaps the most widely prevalent of these.
Probably the earliest motive for “smoking” a patient was merely the replacing of an offensive by a pleasant odour, as we find it frequently employed in malodorous conditions. Here the practice links up with ancient ideas on epidemic diseases.
Behind this rationale, however, there lies perhaps the idea of association of death with the fœtor of decomposition and the expectation that a pleasant aromatic odour will naturally “obviate the tendency to death.” This view of the matter must have become strengthened among nations like the ancient Egyptians, who had discovered that aromatic substances might be relied upon to preserve the body after death. Even in recent times and countries similar customs have prevailed. Scott in “The Bride of Lammermoor” tells us that rosemary, southernwood, rue and other plants were in Scotland strewn on the body after death, and were “burned by way of fumigation in the chimney.”
Be that as it may, we find fumigation employed all over the world as a rite of purification, particularly during the menstrual and puerperal periods, women being at those times regarded as unclean or taboo.
Later, in the natural course of evolution, fumigation comes under the category of antidemoniac remedies.
When disease was ascribed to the operation of demons in residence in the patient’s body, a belief at one time world-wide in its distribution, the treatment mostly relied upon to cure the disease, and, granting the premises, a perfectly rational therapeutic method, was by various devices to render the patient’s body too uncomfortable for the demon. And among many other modes of securing this desirable end was the smoking of the demon out by strong odours, fumes being generated around the patient by burning horns, hair, and certain odoriferous woods and plants. Among the Chippeway Indians, we are told, a species of cypress was set on fire for this purpose, and the efficacy of the remedy was heightened by the needle-shaped leaves of the tree flying off and sticking in the spirit.
Sometimes a medical man may feel disposed to smile when he sees the priest in church “censing” the Bible in order to drive away the evil one before he begins to read it. Yet fumigation has lingered on long in medicine as well as in religion. During the severe epidemics of cholera in Egypt not so many years ago, hundreds of pounds weekly were spent upon bonfires of sulphur in the streets of Cairo, a method of disinfection more likely to drive of demons than to destroy the comma bacillus in the drinking-water !
In mediæval, Jacobean, and Georgian medicine, fumigation was a favourite remedy. Every one, for example, is familiar with the old-fashioned treatment of fainting by burning feathers under the nose. And perfumes and aromatics in general were widely used in the medicine of those days, as the following extract from Salmon’s “Dispensatory” (1696) shows :
“Balsamum Apoplecticum Horstii, Apoplectick Balsam of Horstius.
“Take of the Oils of Nutmegs ℥i., of white Amber rectified ℥ƒ, Roses (commonly called Adeps Rosarum) of Cinnamon A. ℈i., of Lavender, of Marjoram A. grs. xv. of Benjamin, of Rue A. ℈ƒ of Cloves, of Citrons A. grs. iv. Mix all well together, then add Ambergrise ʒƒ, Oriental Civet ℈iv., Choice Musk ʒi. Mix all according to Amt, to the just consistence of a Balsam.
“Salmon. The Oil of Nutmegs is that made by expression, all the rest are Chymical. Horstius saith, that in the whole Republick of Medicine, there is scarcely found an Apoplectick Balsam more illustrious for Fame, more noble for Virtue, more worthy for Honour, more ready for Help, and more ſragrant for smell, than this. It chears and comforts all the spirits, natural, vital, and animal, by anointing the extremities of the Nostrils and the Pulses. It cures Convulsions, Palsics, Numbness, and other Diseases proceeding of cold.”
The modern physician may think this Balsam “apoplectick” in a sense never dreamt of by its author ; nevertheless he must also sigh for the faith that believed all those wonders.
Here is another from the same source for “the strengthening of memory” :
“Balsamum Maemonicus (sic) Sennerti. Balsam for the loss of Memory.
“℞ of the juices of Bawm, Basil, flowers of Sage, Lillies, Primroses, Rosemary, Lavender, Borrage, Broom, A. ℥ii.; Aqua Vitae, Water-lillies, Roses, Violets, A. ℥i.; Cubebs, Cardamoms, Grains of Paradise, yellow Sanders, Corpo balsamum, Orrice, Saffron, Savory, Peony, Tyme, A. ℥ƒ; Storax liquid and Calamita, Opopanax, Bdellium, Galbanum, Gum of Ivy, Labdamum, A. ʒvi. ; Roots of Peony, long Birthwort, Oils of Turpentine, Spike, Costus, Juniper, Bays, Mastick, Baben, Lavender, A. ʒv. Pouder them that are to bepoudered, then mix and distil in an Alembich, with a gradual fire; separate the Balsam from the Water.
“Salmon. In this we have put flowers of Sage instead of Mynica or Tamarisk : otherwise it is verbatim. It is a truly noble Cephalick, and it is reported to cause a perpetual memory, both Water and Balsom are excellent good against all cold Diseases: you may anoint the hinder part of the Head, the Nostrils and Ears therewith. Dose gut. iii. ad vi. This is that Balsam which Charles, Duke of Burgundy bought of an English Doctor for 10000 Florentines.”
It is to be noted, by the way, the odours do not “strengthen the memory” as a whole ; what they do is to revive special memories.
The use of perfumes like camphor to ward off infection has long been in vogue. The pompous doctors of Hogarth’s time—-just 200 years ago—carried walking-sticks the hollow handle of which formed a receptacle for camphor, musk, or other pungent substances, which they held to their noses when visiting patients, to guard against the smells that to them spelt infection. And the air of the Old Bailey used to be, and indeed still is, sweetened with herbs strewn on the Bench, lest the prisoner about to be condemned to death by the rope
might return the compliment and sentence his judge to death by gaol-fever. To this day, also, herbs are strewn about the Guildhall on state and ceremonial occasions, an interesting survival.
Demoniac possession was also largely responsible for the nauseous and disgusting remedies of which early medicine, both among the folk and
among the more educated medical men, was very fond.
Paracelsus was a great believer in such concotions, one of which, zebethum occidentale, was his own invention. Fortunately I am not compelled to divulge the constitution of this remarkable remedy. All I need say is that it was by no means the “cassia, sandal-buds, and stripes of labdanum” of Browning's “Paracclsus” !
Those unspeakable medicaments were (and are still) sometimes applied externally, sometimes administered internally. One of the most absurd variants of this class was the holding of divers foul-smelling mixtures under the patient's nose for the cure of hysteria, the idea being that the stench would repel the “mother” from the patient’s throat, whither it had wandered through sheer boredom and lack of interest elsewhere.
Nevertheless, out of these most absurd and to us meaningless methods of treatment modern medicine has here and there selected remedies which experiment and experience have proved to be of value ; valerian, for example, which is still largely employed for hysterical conditions, and asafœtida (popularly named “devil’s dung”).
As a matter of fact, many pungent, strong-smelling substances are powerful cardiac and muscular stimulants.
Nor must we overlook the carminatives, the pleasantly smelling dill, aniseed, rue and peppermint, the very names of which bring to our minds the sweetness of old country places and the efforts, not always vain, to quiet screaming country babies ! Well are they named the carminatives, acting as they do “like a charm.”
In the Æneid we are told how once upon a time his divine mother was revealed to pious Æneas by a heavenly odour, And although Lucian intimates that the gods themselves enjoyed the smell of incense, yet, according to Elliot Smith, the real object of incense-burning was to impart the body-odour of the god to his worshippers. Something of the kind, whatever the primary motive may have been, must have been needed, one would imagine, to drown the unpleasant smells from the abattoirs in the temples where the sacrificial animals were slaughtered.
The wrath of the Lord God of the Hebrews after the Flood, it will be remembered, was appeased when he smelled the sweet savour of the burnt offerings of Noah on his emergence from the Ark, The sacrifice was, of course, the meal of the god, the flesh of bullocks, rams, doves, and what not, being spiritualised by the flames and so transformed into food a spirit could absorb. The Greek gods, it is true, refreshed themselves with such ethereal delicacies as nectar and ambrosia, but they were by no means indifferent to the square meal of roast beef so punctiliously provided for them by human purveyors. Homer is always careful to mention that, as often as a feast was toward, neither the gods nor the bards were forgotten, the former being fed before and the latter after the heroes themselves had been satisfied.
When, following the Persian division of the unseen world of spirits into good and bad, the idea of an evil-minded and consistently hostile god became popular, his odour was naturally enough the opposite of that of the kindly gods. And as in time he came to assume some of the attributes of the Roman di inferni, he, like the dragons of an even greater antiquity, sported the sulphury odour of his underground dwelling.
The Northern nations of ancient Europe, Grimm tells us, believed that hell was a place of burning pitch, whence arose an intolerable stench. Our English word “smell” is obviously related to a German dialect word for hell—smela—which in turn is itself akin to the Bohemian smola, resin or pitch.
The Christian “hell” was thus the lineal descendant of the subterranean “Hades” of the pagans, and what its stench was like may be gathered from that of the noxious fumes that rise out of clefts in volcanic rocks, such fumes, we may suppose, as in earlier days threw the Oracle at Delphi into her prophetic trances. (Some authorities, however, say that it was the smoke of burning bay-leaves that the Oracle inhaled.)
The offensive odour of hell adheres to all the devils right down to modern times. In the Middle Ages you could always toll the Evil One by his sulphurous stink, but, unfortunately for the tempted, it was not usually observed until after his departure.
But evil odours not only attended the devil himself : they were also generated by the sins. For St. Joseph of Copertino, “seeing beneath the envelope of the body,” was able to recognise the sins of the flesh by their odour. And St. Paconi, so it was said, could even smell out heretics in his day, presumably in the same way as witches are now discovered in Africa.
Moreover, as the devil and his minions are attended with a vile smell, the odour of their infernal home, so naturally they detest what we call sweet and aromatic perfumes and are repelled by them, as the following tale from Sinistrari of Ameno shows. I give it verbatim as it appears in Sax Rohmer’s “Romance of Sorcery” :
“In a certain monastery of holy nuns there lived as a boarder a young maiden of noble birth who was tempted by an Incubus, that appeared to her by day and by night, and with the most earnest entreaties, the manners of a most passionate lover, incessantly incited her to sin; but she, supported by the grace of God and the frequent use of the Sacraments, stoutly resisted the temptation. But all her devotions, fasts, and vows notwithstanding, despite the exorcisms, the blessings, the injunctions showered by exorcists on the Incubus that he should desist from molesting her, in spite of the crowd of relics and other holy objects collected in the maiden’s room, of the lighted candles kept burning there all night, the Incubus none the less persisted in appearing to her as usual in the shape of a very handsome young man.
“At last among other learned men whose advice had been taken on the subject was a very erudite Theologian, who, observing that the maiden was of a thoroughly phlegmatic temperament, surmised that the Incubus was an aqueous demon (there are in fact, as is testified by Guaccius, igneous, aerial, phlegmatic, earthly, subterranean demons, who avoid the light of day) and prescribed an uninterrupted fumigation of the room.
“A new vessel, made of glass like earth, was accordingly brought in, and filled with sweet cane, cubeb seed, roots of both aristolochies, great and small cardamom, ginger, long-pepper, caryophylleae, cinnamon, cloves, mace, nutmegs, calamite, storax, benzoin, aloes wood and roots, one ounce of triapandalis, and three pounds of half brandy and water ; the vessel was then set on hot ashes in order to distil the fumigating vapour, and the cell was kept closed.
“As soon as the fumigation was done, the Incubus came, but never dared enter the cell; only, if the maiden left it for a walk in the garden or the cloister, he appeared to her, though invisible to others, and, throwing his arms around her neck, stole or rather snatched kisses from her, to her intense disgust.
“At last, after a new consultation, the Theologian prescribed that she should carry about her person pills made of the most exquisite perfumes, such as musk, amber, chive, Peruyian balsam, etc. Thus provided, she went for a walk in the garden, where the Incubus suddenly appeared to her with a threatening face, and in a rage. He did not approach her, however, but, after biting his finger as if meditating revenge, disappeared, and was nevermore seen by her.”
On the other hand, the odour of sanctity in mediæval times was a much more real perfume than that in which the Jackdaw of Reims died. It does not seem, so far as I can make out from my reading, that the sweet smell of the Saints was ever remarked in the early centuries of the Christian era, The odour diffused around his pillar by St. Simeon Stylites, for example, was by no means pleasant. But by A.D. 1000 the sweetness of the Saints’ persons was beginning to pervade the religious atmosphere. Writing about that time, Odericus Vitalis tells us that “from the sepulchre of St. Andrew” (at Patras, Asia Minor) “manna like flour and oil of an exquisite odour flow, which indicate to the inhabitants of that country” what the crops will be like that year. And the example thus set by this apostle is followed by all other saintly personages for many centuries.
In England, we read that when the Blessed Martyr Alban’s burial place on the hill above Verulamium was opened, in obedience to a sign from heaven in the shape of a flash of lightning, the good people were enraptured by the delicious fragrance of the Saint's remains, and the same characteristic attended those of the later martyr Thomas à Becket.
St. Thomas à Kempis is credited with the statement that the chamber of the blessed Leduine was so charmingly odorous that people who were privileged to enter it were delighted, and wishing to enjoy her perfume to the full, were wont to approach their faces close to the bosom of the Saint, “who seemed to have become a casket in which the Lord had deposited His most precious perfumes.” After the death of St. Theresa a salt-cellar which had been placed in her bed preserved for a long time a most delicious odour. And so on indefinitely, some of the stories being, as might be expected, a little too plain-spoken and artless for modern readers.
It is difficult to account for the pleasant odour of Saints whose pride it was to live without change of raiment, to harbour parasites, and to abstain from washing, Nevertheless that certain persons exhale a naturally pleasant aroma from their bodies is true. Alexander the Great is noted by Plutarch as having so sweet an odour that his tunics were soaked with aromatic perfume, and taking a flying leap through the pages of history, we come to Walt Whitman, who had the same characteristic. Indeed, a piny aromatic odour, of considerable strength, is occasionally noticeable in certain people, and I can myself testify that it becomes stronger on the approach of their death.
We are not often told when historical heroes were unpleasant in this respect, but in the case of Louis XIV. we have the authoritative evidence of Madame Montespan, who after their “divorce, when having a public set-to with her sun-god in the glittering salles of Versailles, discomfited that little, red-heeled, bewigged, and pompous mannikin with the following broadside :
“With all my imperfections, at least I do not smell as badly as you do !”
His ancestor, “Lewis the Eleventh,” says Burton in “The Anatomy of Melancholy,” “had a conceit everything did stink about him, All the odoriferous perfumes they could get would not ease him, but still he smelled a filthy stink.”
A modern rhinologist would suspect this monarch of having been afflicted with maxillary antrum suppuration. It will be noted, however, that there is no record that the odour he himself perceived was perceptible to others. The fœtor, as we say, was subjective, not objective, in which respect it differed from that of another historical personage, Benjamin Disraeli to wit, who was the subject probably of the disease known as ozæna. (See later.)