“I can tell by the way you smell”

Abstract

As a legacy of Kantian rationalism, smell occupies a minor place in most approaches to the sensorium. Yet nineteenth-century sanitary medicine understood odor to be a diagnostic tool for distinguishing health and disease. For English evangelical sanitarians, the trained nose made it possible to detect the unhealthy and sinful practices of individuals, families, cities and nations. Cultivating the sense of smell entailed the elaboration of a dietetics, at once a manner of feeding, a way of life and grounds for critical judgment. The concept dietetics supplements the use of the habitus in the sensory literature.

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