Scent gland

“ The first scent of a flower is the strongest and sweetest; and after a few minutes' exposure the intensity of even a foetid odour may not be perceived. This fact may be accounted for on the supposition that the olfactory membrane becomes quickly coated with a thin layer of matter, and that the most intense effect is produced when the odoriferous substances are applied to a clean surface. The intensity of smell depends on (1) the area of olfactory surface affected, and (2) the degree of concentration of the odoriferous matter. ”

“ To identify oneself with any particular scent. It must be rubbed in all over the body. This is easily done by mixing the scent with a little oil and after the bath rub every part of the body with it. Also make small bags or pockets, buy the scent in powder (if possible) and fill them with it, and then pin or sew them into the dresses, stays, &c., &c. Some ladies use violet powder or orris root in this way and consequently are remarkable for the sweet odour of violets that always accompanies them. It is best to choose a scent the oil and essence of which is obtainable. ”

“ It is not unlikely that the scent of these plants, with which the Furies were said to stupefy their victims, an odour which is often insupportable to men themselves, should be distasteful to their far more sensitive nostrils. ”

“ The scent of flowers grew stronger and came from all sides; the grass was drenched with dew; a nightingale struck up in a lilac bush close by and then stopped on hearing our voices; the starry sky seemed to come down lower over our heads. ”

“ If someone smells a flower and says he does not understand, the reply to him is: there is nothing to understand, it is only a scent. If he persists, saying: that I know, but what does it all mean? Then one has either to change the subject, or make it more abstruse by saying that the scent221 is the shape which the universal joy takes in the flower. ”

“ So behave that the odor of your actions may enhance the general sweetness of the atmosphere, that when we behold or scent a flower, we may not be reminded how inconsistent your deeds are with it; ”

“ In the slanting beams that streamed through the open doorway the dust danced and was golden. The heavy scent of the roses seemed to brood over everything. ”

“ “I think I am quite wicked with roses; I like to gather them and smell them till they have no scent left.” ”

“ The fairest things have fleetest end: Their scent survives their close, But the rose's scent is bitterness To him that loved the rose! ”

“ Sweet-briar and southern-wood, jasmine, pink, and rose have long been yielding their evening sacrifice of incense: this new scent is neither of shrub nor flower; it is—I know it well—it is Mr. Rochester's cigar. ”

“ The smell of the lily, the narcissus, the tuberose, the violet, the rose, the elder, etc., when it reaches a certain point of concentration, usually exerts an injurious influence on the system. It occasions more or less severe headaches, fainting-fits, and sometimes even more serious disorders. Some odors, which have an agreeable perfume in a state of considerable diffusion, gain when concentrated a noxious and sometimes dangerous smell. ”

“ This effect is exemplified by comparison with the influence of certain colors when mixed, upon the nerve of vision: such, for instance, as when yellow and blue are mixed, the result we call green; or when blue and red are united, the compound color is known as puce or violet.
Now when the odor of lavender and odor of cloves are mixed, they produce a new fragrance, i.e. Rondeletia! It is such combinations that constitute in reality "a new perfume," which, though often advertised, is very rarely attained. ”

“ We have now come to the end of our discourse upon the theories of odour, and it must be confessed that we are still very much in the dark as to the nature of the odorous, and as to the manner in which it excites the olfactory organ to activity.
Still more mysterious, however, is the process by which the physical quality of odour becomes the sensation of the mind we call smell.
The transmutation of a physical quality into a sensation is indeed the great mystery of all our senses. ”

“ Acuteness of smell requires that the brain and nerve of smell be healthy, and that the membrane that lines the nose be thin and moist. Any influence that diminishes the sensibility of the nerves, thickens the membrane, or renders it dry, impairs this sense. ”

“ She felt she would gladly have stayed for ever in this dark still church—with the few small spots of light like golden stars in the night, the sweet stale scent of incense and the warm smell of the burning wax. ”

“ By tutoring the olfactory nerve, it is capable of perceiving matter in the atmosphere of the most subtle nature: not only that which is pleasant, but also such as are unhealthful. If an unpleasant odor is a warning to seek a purer atmosphere, surely it is worth while to cultivate that power which enables us to act up to that warning for the general benefit of health.
To return, however, to Rondeletia: it will be seen by the annexed formulæ, that, besides the main ingredients to which it owes its peculiar character—that is, cloves and lavender—it contains musk, vanilla, &c. ”

“ If the access of air is prevented, or if the nerve is altered, no sensation is produced. Experiments in physiology, in fact, have settled that the olfactory nerves (or those of the first pair) are assigned exclusively to the perception of odors. Loss of the sense of smell occurs whenever the nerves are destroyed or injured by any process, or even whenever they are merely compressed. On the other hand, it is a matter of common observation that impeding the passage of air into the nostrils is quite as effectual a way of making any sort of olfactory sensation impossible. ”

“ The relative positions of eyes and mouth being thus fixed, those of the smell and taste organs follow. Odorous emanations arise from the food significant of its character. The animal becoming most conscious of them has the best chance to escape danger. These odors naturally rise upward. The nose, as the organ of smell, is therefore best situated just above the mouth, and overhanging it, the performance of its function, as the organ of respiration, causing the respired air to sweep the lips and draw in the odors arising from the food. ”

“ The spring came early, and once out of doors the swiftly-flitting hours of sensory acuteness brought to me on every breeze nameless odors which have no being to the common sense,—a sweet, faint confusion of scents, some slight, some too intense,—a gamut of odors. Usually I have an imperfect capacity to apprehend smells, unless they are very positive, and it was a curious lesson to learn how intense for the time a not perfect function may become. ”

“ The perfumes for the handkerchief, as found in the shops of Paris and London, are either simple or compound; the former are called extracts, extraits, esprits, or essences, and the latter bouquets and nosegays, which are mixtures of the extracts so compounded in quantity that no one flower or odor can be discovered as predominating over another; and when made of the delicate-scented flowers carefully blended, they produce an exquisite sensation on the olfactory nerve, and are therefore much prized by all who can afford to purchase them. ”

“ As with the eye, so with the nose—innumerable nerves are distributed over the lining membrane, and these nerves are connected with larger nerves passing to the brain, through which everything relating to the sense of smell is communicated.
The nose acts like a custom-house officer to the system. It is highly sensitive to the odour of most poisonous substances. It readily detects hemlock, henbane, monk's hood, and the plants containing prussic acid. It recognises the fœted smell of drains, and warns us not to breathe the polluted air. ”

“ I set myself to inquire, and my researches have assured me that the seat of the immortal part of man is in his nose. All the mind affections are relative to the nasal sensations. I have found this out by observing the habits of animals in the menagerie; and, finding how exquisite was their sense of smell, I conceived my great idea, and experiment has proved me right. So perfect can the perceptions by the nose become that I can discover even the mental conditions of those around me by smelling them ”

“ By neglecting to tutor the olfactory nerve, we are constantly led to breathe impure air, and thus poison the body by neglecting the warning given at the gate of the lungs. Persons who use perfumes are more sensitive to the presence of a vitiated atmosphere than those who consider the faculty of smelling as an almost useless gift. ”

“ The odour of a big hæmorrhage is unmistakable and, to obstetricians particularly, ominous.
Then there is the smell of mice which attends upon the skin disease known as favus.
The breath of a chronic drunkard is familiar enough to everybody, and the more delicate aroma in the circumambient atmosphere of the careful tippler, ethereal and by no means unpleasant, will often reveal to the physician the hidden cause of obscure symptoms. It is particularly valuable when your patient is, as so many of these secret drinkers are, a woman, it may be a woman of good social standing. ”

“ And again, if the taste devotes itself to continual eating and feasting, and to innumerable winebibbings, then it draws the soul downwards, and into darkness and into drunkenness. Yet again in the case of the smell. If the nose be in the habit of taking delight in the things which have sweet smells, that is, in scented unguents, and in aromatic perfumes, and in balsams, it falls at length into a state of numbness, and it binds tightly the soul in that state of numbness along with it. ”

“ These hairs project into and are immersed in a thin layer of mucus, at all events in air-breathing animals, an environment which is necessary for their functional activity, because, if the nose becomes desiccated, as it does in some diseases, the sense of smell is lost (anosmia) . The hairs 24are, without doubt, the true receptive elements of the olfactory cells. It is these which come into contact with and are stimulated by odours—whatever the nature of Odour may be. ”

“ During the hot seasons an attendant sprinkles water over them; this operation cools the apartment by the evaporation of the water, and, at the same time, perfumes the atmosphere, in a very agreeable manner, with the odoriferous principle of the vitivert. It has a smell between the aromatic or spicy odor and that of flowers—if such a distinction can be admitted. We classify it with orris root, not that it has any odor resembling it, but because it has a like effect in use in perfumery, and because it is prepared as a tincture for obtaining its odor. ”

“ Perfumes or scents, however, exert not only an agreeable impression on the olfactory organ, but their effect extends to the entire nervous system, which they stimulate; when used in excess, they are apt to cause headache in sensitive persons; the laborers in the chemical factories where these substances are produced on a large scale, occasionally even suffer by reason of their stimulating action on the nerves. ”

“ Emphatic as a blow. Obviously, we have here a combination of several sense impressions, tactile, visual, olfactory: tactile, for 157the air is damp and chilly; visual, for it is a blank, a negative, and yet a powerful influence; olfactory, smelling ominous and of death. Old dried bones emit precisely the same exhalation. In a subtle way, too, the presence of mould is perceptible, all blending into the horrible and grisly atmosphere of despair; the Valse Triste and the Dance of Death.
Smell can bring as certainly and as irresistibly as music emotions of all sorts to the mind. ”

“ I came back from the Dog’s school with the conviction that the truffle-detecting nose has a better guide than smell, in the sense in which our olfactory powers realize it. It must perceive, in addition, effluvia of a different order, full of mystery to us, who are not equipped accordingly. Light has its dark rays, which are without effect upon our retinæ, but not apparently upon all. Why should not [306] the domain of smell have its secret emanations, unknown to our senses but perceptible to a differently constructed organ of smell? ”

“ If those who suffer from a cold blow their noses violently at the very moment in which they have anything fetid or perfumed in their mouth, or on their palate, they instantly have a clear perception of the fetor or perfume. These instances afford and constitute this species or division of taste, namely, that it is in part nothing else than an internal smelling, passing and descending through the upper passages of the nostrils to the mouth and palate. ”

“ The sense of smell depends upon the contact of odorous emanations with the sensitive olfactory membrane, and such contact can only take place when there is a free passage for them through the nose. If the nasal membranes become thickened from any cause, thus partially or wholly preventing the passage of air, the capacity of smell is correspondingly affected. ”

“ Ribot found that 40 per cent. of persons are unable to revive any such images of taste or smell; 48 per cent, could revive some; 12 per cent, declared themselves capable of reviving all, or nearly all, at pleasure. In some persons there is no necessary accompanying revival of visual or tactile representations, but in the majority the revived odor ultimately excites a corresponding visual image. The odors most frequently recalled were pinks, musk, violets, heliotrope, carbolic acid, the smell of the country, of grass, etc. ”