ODORS AND LIFE. 187 
by them, complain of being haunted by fetid emanations, 
or congratulate themselves on inhaling the most delicious 
perfumes. Lelut mentions the case of a woman, an inmate 
of la Salpétriére, who fancied that she constantly perceived 
a frightful stench proceeding from the decay of bodies she 
imagined buried in the courts of that institution. Impres- 
sions of the kind are usually very annoying. Brierre de 
Boismont relates the account of a woman affected by dis- 
order of all her senses. Whenever she saw a well-dressed 
lady passing, she smelt the odor of musk, which was in- 
tolerable to her. If it were a man, she was distressingly 
affected by the smell of tobacco, though she was quite 
aware that those scents existed only in her imagination. 
Capellini mentions that a woman, who declared that she 
could not bear the smell of a rose, was quite ill when one 
of her friends came in wearing one, though the unlucky 
flower was only artificial. 
Such facts might be multiplied; but, as they are all 
alike, it is not worth while to mention more of them. The 
latest observations made in insane-asylums, among others, 
those of M. Prévost, at la Salpétriére, have shown also that 
these delusions and perversions of the sense of smell are 
more common than had hitherto been supposed among such 
invalids, and that if they usually pass unnoticed, it arises 
from the fact that nothing spontaneously denotes their ex- 
istence. 
The intensity and delicacy of the sense of smell vary 
in mankind among different individuals, and particularly 
among different races of men. While some persons are al- 
most devoid of the sense of smell, others, whose history is 
related in the annals of science, have displayed a refine- 
ment and range in the distinction of odors truly wonderful. 
Woodward, for instance, mentions a woman who foretold 
storms several hours before their coming, by the help of 
the sulphurous odor, due probably to ozone, which she per- 
