Home › The Doctor's Kitchen › Odours, and Perfumes

Odours, and Perfumes

i SYDNEY SMITH declared : "God has given us wit, and flavour, and brightness, and laughter, and perfumes, to enliven the days of man's pilgrimage, and to charm his pained steps over the burning marle." That specific odours (fragrant, or the reverse) can exercise medicinal effects (particularly as regards meats and drinks) on the health of the body, is undeniable. Likewise (as stated elsewhere) this health can be "remarkably preserved by wholesome, fragrant dishes, and drinks from the garden of fruit trees, all the years." "Such are both alimentall, and physicall; they cure disease, and preserve health, discharging the body of the beginnings, and seeds of many diseases. This they do in severall respects: first, by the organs of the body; secondly, by the affections of the minde. The sweet perfumes of fruits work immediately upon the spirits for their refreshing; but meat, and drink act by ambages, and length of time. Sweet, and healthful ayres are speciall preservatives to health, and therefore much to be prised. Is the curative part of physick so worthy, and excellent as the preservative part? It's better to stand fast, than to fall, and rise again!"

Physicians," writes Montaigne, "might, in mine opinion, draw more use, and good from odours than they doe. For myselfe have often perceived that according unto their strength, and qualitie, they change, and alter, and move my spirits, and worke strange 66 effects in me, which makes me approve the common saying that the invention of incense, and perfumes in Churches, so ancient, and so far dispersed throughout all nations, and religions, had a speciall regard to rejoyce, to comfort, to quicken, to rouze, and to purifie our senses, so that we might be the apter, and readier unto contemplations. And, the better to judge of it, I would that I had my part of the skill which some cookes have who can so curiously season, and temper strange odors with the savour, and rellish of their meats! As it was especially observed in the service of the King of Tunes, who in our day landed at Naples to meet, and enter-parley with the Emperour Charles the Fifth. His viands were so exquisitely farced, and so sumptuously seasoned with sweet odoriferous drugs, and aromatical spices, that it was found upon his booke of accompt, the dressing of one peacocke, and two fesants amounted to one hundred duckets; which was their ordinarie manner of cooking his meats. And when they were carved up, not only the dining chambers, but all the roomes of his Pallace, and the streets round about it, were replenished with an exceeding odoriferous, and aromaticall vapour, which continued a long time after." Quite of late Dr. Forbes Watson, in Flowers and Gardens, has remarked when writing about the Cowslip, that "its fine scent recalls the sweet breath of the cow, -an odour which breathes in conjunction with cows as they sit at rest in the pasture, and which is believed by many, perhaps with truth, to be actually curative of disease." To the same effect Mrs. Catherine Crowe (in The Night Side of Nature, 1848) has reminded us that "the disturbing effects of odours on some persons, which are quite innoxious to others, must have been noticed by everybody. Some people do actually almost die of a rose in aromatic pain." It has been pertinently, though coarsely observed, that "each man's own bed does not smell strong to himself, because he is accustomed to its characteristic odour. Neither does a tallowchandler smell those horrible, and pernicious fumes that old tallow sends forth when it is melted. But let any other person who is not accustomed thereto be near such things, and they will prove highly offensive." Statistics compiled from reports of inspectors of scent factories, as well as experiments made upon some of the lower animals, especially frogs, have proved of late that not only the stronger scents, but even the more subtle, and delicate perfumes of fragile flowers, are capable of