What a brilliant title.
At this risk of sounding all pushy and “know-it-all” may I suggest that certain people on yt read this book.
Yes. It’s Mainstream. But some of his sources go back the the early 1700’s.
I smell a RAT :o)
Attempting to put the sense of smell on the historical map, the author of this book conveys the power that smells – from the seductress’s civet to the ubiquitous excremental odours of city cesspools – exercised over the lives (and deaths) of Frenchmen in the 18th and 19th centuries. Integrating a range of disciplines – the histories of science and medicine, urban studies, public health, psychohistory, and literary criticism – the work lays bare the deeper implications of smell for science, society, and literature.