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
