beloved is unto me as a cluster of henna flowers
In the vineyard of En-gedi."

And again: "His cheeks are as a bed of spices [or balsam], as
banks of sweet herbs." While of her he says: "The smell of thy
breath [or nose] is like apples."

Greek and Roman antiquity, which has so largely influenced the
traditions of modern Europe, was lavish in the use of perfumes,
but showed no sympathy with personal odors. For the Roman
satirists, like Martial, a personal odor is nearly always an
unpleasant odor, though, there are a few allusions in classic
literature recognizing bodily smell as a sexual attraction. Ovid,
in his _Ars Amandi_ (Book III), says it is scarcely necessary to
remind a lady that she must not keep a goat in her armpits: "_ne
trux caper iret in alas_." "_Mulier tum bene olet ubi nihil
olet_" is an ancient dictum, and in the sixteenth century
Montaigne still repeated the same saying with complete approval.

A different current of feeling began to appear with the new
emotional movement during the eighteenth century. Rousseau called
attention to the importance of the olfactory sense, and in his
educational work, _Emile_ (Bk. II), he referred to the odor of a
woman's "_cabinet de toilette_" as not so feeble a snare as is
commonly supposed. In the same century Casanova wrote still more
emphatically concerning the same point; in the preface to his
_Memoires_ he states: "I have always found sweet the odor of the
women I have loved"; and elsewhere: "There is something in the
air of the bedroom of the woman one loves, something so intimate,
so balsamic, such voluptuous emanations, that if a lover had to
choose between Heaven and this place of delight his hesitation
would not last for a moment" (_Memoires_, vol. iii). In the
previous century, in England, Sir Kenelm Digby, in his
interesting and remarkable _Private Memoirs_, when describing a
visit to Lady Venetia Stanley, afterward his wife, touches on
personal odor as an element of attraction; he had found her
asleep in bed and on her breasts "did glisten a few drops of
sweatlike diamond sparks, and had a more fragrant odor than the
violets or primroses whose season was newly passed."

In 1821 Cadet-Devaux published, in the _Revue Encyclopedique_, a
study entitled "De l'atmosphere de la Femme et de sa Puissance,"