al paces,
the moment they entered the room. In another case a deaf and blind mute
woman in Massachusetts knew all her acquaintances by smell, and could sort
linen after it came from the wash by the odor alone. Governesses have been
known to be able when blindfolded to recognize the ownership of their
pupil's garments by smell; such a case is known to me. Such odor is
usually described as being agreeable, but not one person in fifty, it is
stated, is able to distinguish it with sufficient precision to use it as a
method of recognition. Among some races, however this aptitude would
appear to be better developed. Dr. C.S. Myers at Sarawak noted that his
Malay boy sorted the clean linen according to the skin-odor of the
wearer.[33] Chinese servants are said to do the same, as well as
Australians and natives of Luzon.[34]

Although the distinctively individual odor of most persons is not
sufficiently marked to be generally perceptible, there are cases
in which it is more distinct to all nostrils. The most famous
case of this kind is that of Alexander the Great, who, according
to Plutarch, exhaled so sweet an odor that his tunics were soaked
with aromatic perfume (_Convivalium Disputationum_, lib. I,
quest. 6). Malherbe, Cujas, and Haller are said to have diffused
a musky odor. The agreeable odor of Walt Whitman has been
remarked by Kennedy and others. The perfume exhaled by many holy
men and women, so often noted by ancient writers (discussed by
Goerres in the second volume of his _Christliche Mystik_) and
which has entered into current phraseology as a merely
metaphorical "odor of sanctity," was doubtless due, as Hammond
first pointed out, to abnormal nervous conditions, for it is well
known that such conditions affect the odor, and in insanity, for
instance, the presence is noted of bodily odors which have
sometimes even been considered of diagnostic importance. J.B.
Friedreich, _Allgemeine Diagnostik der Psychischen Krankheiten_,
second edition, 1832, pp. 9-10, quotes passages from various
authors on this point, which he accepts; various writers of more
recent date have made similar observations.

The odor of sanctity was specially noted at death, and was
doubtless confused with the _odor mortis_, which frequently
precedes death and by some is regarded as an almost certain
indication of its approach. In the _British Medic