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Section 42. (e) The Sense of Smell.

The sense of smell would be of great importance for legal consideration if it could get the study it deserves. It may be said that many men have more acute olfactory powers than they know, and that they may learn more by means of them than by means of the other senses. The sense of smell has little especial practical importance. It only serves to supply a great many people with occasional disagreeable impressions, and what men fail to find especially necessary they do not easily make use of. The utility of smell would be great because it is accurate, and hence powerful in its associative quality. But it is rarely attended to; even when the associations are awakened they are not ascribed to the sense of smell but are said to be accidental. I offer one example only, of this common fact. When I was a child of less than eight years, I once visited with my parents a priest who was a school-mate of my father's. The day spent in the parsonage contained nothing remarkable, so that all these years I have not even thought of it. A short time ago all the details I encountered on that day occurred to me very vividly, and inasmuch as this sudden memory seemed baseless, I studied carefully the cause of its occurrence, without success. A short time later I had the same experience and at the same place. This was a clew, and I then recalled that I had undertaken a voyage of discovery with the small niece of the parson and had been led into a fruit cellar. There I found great heaps of apples laid on straw, and on the wall a considerable number of the hunting boots of the parson. The mixed odors of apple, straw and boots constituted a unique and long unsmelled perfume which had sunk deep into my memory. And as I passed a room which contained the same elements of odor, all those things that were associated with that odor at the time I first smelt it, immediately recurred.

Everybody experiences such associations in great number, and in examinations a little trouble will bring them up, especially when the question deals with remote events, and a witness tells about some "accidental" idea of his. If the accident is considered to be

an association and studied in the light of a memory of odor, one may often succeed in finding the right clew and making progress.

But accurate as the sense of smell is, it receives as a rule little consideration, and when some question concerning smell is put the answer is generally negative. Yet in no case may a matter be so easily determined as in this one; one may without making even the slightest suggestion, succeed in getting the witness to confess that he had smelled something. Incidentally, one may succeed in awakening such impressions as have not quite crossed the threshold of consciousness, or have been subdued and diverted. Suppose, e. g., that a witness has smelled fire, but inasmuch as he was otherwise engaged was not fully conscious of it or did not quite notice it, or explained it to himself as some kitchen odor or the odor of a bad cigar. Such perceptions are later forgotten, but with proper questioning are faithfully and completely brought to memory.

Obviously much depends on whether anybody likes certain delicate odors or not. As a rule it may be held that a delicate sense of smell is frequently associated with nervousness. Again, people with broad nostrils and well developed foreheads, who keep their mouths closed most of the time, have certainly a delicate sense of smell. People of lymphatic nature, with veiled unclear voices, do not have a keen sense of smell, and still duller is that of snufflers and habitual smokers. Up to a certain degree, practice may do much, but too much of it dulls the sense of smell. Butchers, tobacconists, perfumers, not only fail to perceive the odors which dominate their shops; their sense of smell has been dulled, anyway. On the other hand, those who have to make delicate distinctions by means of their sense, like apothecaries, tea dealers, brewers, wine tasters, etc. achieve great skill. I remember that one time when I had in court to deal almost exclusively with gypsies, I could immediately smell whether any gypsies had been brought there during the night.

Very nervous persons develop a delicateness and acuteness of smell which other persons do not even imagine. Now we have no real knowledge of how odors arise. That they are not the results of the radiation of very tiny parts is shown by the fact that certain bodies smell though they are known not to give off particles. Zinc, for example, and such things as copper, sulphur, and iron, have individual odors; the latter, particularly when it is kept polished by a great deal of friction,—e.g., in the cases of chains, key-rings kept in the pocket.

In defining the impressions of smell great difficulties occur. Even normal individuals often have a passionate love for odors that are either indifferent or disgusting to others (rotten apples, wet sponges, cow-dung, and the odor of a horse-stable, garlic, assafoetida, very ripe game, etc.). The same individual finds the odor of food beautiful when hungry, pleasant when full-fed, and unendurable when he has migraine. It would be necessary to make an accurate description of these differences and all their accompanying circumstances. With regard to sex, the sense of smell, according to Lombroso,[1] is twice as fine in men as in women. This is verified by Lombroso's pupils Ottolenghi and Sicard, Roncoroni and Francis Galton. Experience of daily life does not confirm this, though many smokers among men rarely possess acute sense of smell, and this raises the percentage considerably in favor of women.