The Smell of Drugs

Abstract

The new consensus that smells were tiny material effluvia emitted by all objects served to demystify odours and some of their former powers were questioned. Where sixteenth- and seventeenth-century writers had believed that odours could be nutritious, by the early nineteenth century medical writers no longer believed this to be the case. In the world of materia medica doubts were also raised about the ability of odours to communicate medical powers and the capacity of smelling to divine the medical efficacy of materials. This was partly encouraged by a new medical marketplace in which, partly to render medicines palatable to all consumers, drugs were marketed as odourless. Smell was separated from medical efficacy. Yet the materiality and agentive nature of smells meant that their social power was rendered far more significant.