The Cheyenne Daily Leader

The Sense of Smell.

At the Innsbruck anthropologists' meeting Dr. Herrmann, from Vienna, gave an amusing lecture on the sense of smell. The noncarnivorous animals are those which have best preserved the sense of smell, while men and animals who eat flesh have greatly lost the faculty. Dwelling together in crowded cities has in men dulled the olfactory nerves.

The negro, whose wide nostrils remind one of corn and hay eating cattle, has a sharp sense of smell, while the Americans, because of the use of snuff, are almost without it. That we are so little sensitive to the coal smoke of cities and railways shows how degenerated are the noses of civilized peoples. While civilization does everything possible to assist sight and hearing, nothing is done for smelling. Perhaps, said the lecturer, the nose is too imperfect an organ to offer any standpoint for artificial assistance.

Speaking of dress materials and their capability of retaining odors, the lecturer pronounced silk to be the best material because most odors pass through it without leaving any smell behind. Linen, on the contrary, holds odors fast. Wool allows many a smell to pass through, but retains exactly the odors of decay for example, the smell of a corpse. So that it is a great mistake to attend a funeral in woolen dresses. That civilization spoils the sense of smell is shown by house dogs and pet dogs, who lose their sense of smell in a surprising manner.