The Foul _and the Fragrant ODOR AND THE FRENCH SOCIAL IMAGINATION Alain Corbin Leamington Sper! Uamburg] New York 1986 BERG PUBLISHERSPublishers Lid 24 Binrwond Avene, Leamington Spa, CV32 5 Schenefdder Landswase 14K, 2000 Habe, Were Germany 175 Filth Aver, New York toro, NY, USA. ngs eansason © 1986 Berg Publishers Lad sod the Presiden and Bellows of Harvard College (Originally published ax Le Mime ol jonguill. Trusted ‘om the French by permiaton ofthe pahieher, Ashen Mowe, (© Editions Auber Monaigne 1582, Ald ights reserved British Libor Cataloging in Publication Data Cobia, Alain he fou and the Ragan odor and che Fench sca imagination, 1. Odors — Socal aspects France 1 Tide IL Lemiasne el jong 306 HN440.95, Iso 6-907582-47-8 Printed inthe United Stores of America Foreword ‘Tovay's nistony comes deodorized. Thanks to experts in art, architecrure, and artifacts, ‘our eyes have been opened to what the past looked lke; and all who have immersed them- selves in diaries, novels, and lecters will have theit ears attuned to the distant sounds of civilized life. Bue how ‘many historians have given us che smell of previous societies? Re- searchers have been all roo silent, repelled, ic seems, by modern hygienic sensibilities even from contemplating the stench of the past. ‘Smell—both as an emanation of material culeure and as part of che empire of the senses-—though fundamental 0 experience has beer neglected by scholars. Alain Corbin has now made a memorable conteibution to pucting smell on the historical map, in 2 book whose erudition and originality Ihave already ensured it a dazzling impact in France. Integrating, an impressive range of specialist disciplines—not least, the histories of science and of medicine, urban studies, public health, psychohistory, and literary eriticism—he conjures up the dominion exercised in past time over people's lives—and deaths—by che combined forces of smells, from the seductress’ civet to the ubiquitous excremencal odors of city cesspools. Corbin succeeds in capruring all such assaults on the nose and the visceraas they struck the French in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. His ambitions, however, are far greater: exploring the deeper repercussions of smell for science, society, ead literature. InFOREWORD the “world we have lost” before today’s hygienic regimes, stenches flled the nose; but they also filled the mind. Smell featured crucially in leading theories of life, disease, and the atmosphere and in tech nologies of health from the Eolightenment to the mid-nineteenth- ‘century heyday ofthe sanitarians. Pre-Pasteurian orthodoxy held that sickness arose from pestilential miasmas given off by the envicon- ‘ment, by towns, and by thei fetid populations. Stench was, in fact, disease. And as experts increasingly sniffed out the sources of stench among the "great unwashed,” sanitary reformers and social engineers joined forces in campaigns against filth in all its modes~physical, moral, and verbal. In other words, argues Corbin, public health smust be seen as more than a milestone on the road of progress it had its wider politics as one of the Foucaultian disciplines of social control. So, to borrow Mary Douglas's formula, the “purity” of disinfec- tion could wage successful bare against the “danget” of pollution ‘Yet, paradoxically—as Corbin brilliantly reveals—smell remained potent and alluring. In the psycho-semiology of olfaction, body odors spelled protection, strength, aod sexuality. Not least, one’s smell was ‘unique “fingerprint” of identity. Hence, although the lieerary image ination from Balzac to Zola certainly picked on smell to sigaal disgust toward the masses, through Romanticism ic also evoked the mysteries of love, reverie, and memory. In contrast ro the fecal stink of the herd, atgues Corbin, there was the unique fragrance of the loved fone: pure, natural. The outcomes were material a5 well as literacy the art of the parfumier, in a Cory, Worth, of Guerlaia, ceased to be fone of masking and became the secret means of revealing inner identity. And if, for Flaubert and for Huysmans above all, che power of smell was delicious, decadent, and ultimately destructive, dredging up from the depths a welter of animal associations, isn't that merely to say that the artist had already anticipated Freud's discovery of smell as the meeting point of desire and shame within the paradox of civilization? ‘Corbin traces the intellectual affinities of smell from science, via salubrity, to sensibility, uncovering connections of keen interest to specialist in history, literarure, and medicine no less than to every FOREWORD reader fascinated by the cultural anthropology of the senses. Com- bining that commitment to “total history” pioneered by the Annales school, with a nose for pungent detail, he has called up a lost world and excitingly enriched our perceptions of the past, Roy Porn Wellcome Inttate forthe History of Medicine, LondonPART ONE The Perceptual Revolution or the Sense of Smell on Trial PART TWO Contents INTRODUCTION 1 ‘Air and the Threat of the Putrid 11 ‘The Extremes of Olfactory Vigilance 22 Social Emanations 35 . Redefining the Intolerable 57 . The New Calculus of Olfactory Pleasure 71 Purifying Public Space PART THRE ‘The Tactics of Deodorization 89 . Odors and the Physiology of the Social Order 111 Policy and Palfition +28 Smells, Symbols, and Social Representations ‘The Stench of the Poor 142 ». Domestic Atmospheres 16x ‘The Perfumes of Intimacy 176 .. The Intoxicating Flask 200 “Laughter in a Bead of Sweat” 211 ‘The Odors of Paris 222 CONCLUSION 229 NOTES 235 INDEX 293Miriam L. Kochan provided a first drat trans- lation, and Dr. Roy Porter and Christopher Prendergast contribueed their kaowledge and skills to achieve the final version. The pub- lishers gratefully acknowledge thei help. THE FOUL AND THE FRAGRANTIntroduction Tus tna oF writing a book about the per- ception of odors came to me as I was reading the memoirs of Jean-Noél Hallé, « member Of the Société Royale de Médecine under the ancien régime and the firs incumbent of dhe chair of public lygiene established in Paris in 1794, Let us follow him through three episodes of his tireless struggle, beginning with February 14, 1790. More than six months have passed since the storming of the Bastille. The situation has calmed down ‘Mild temperatures announce the end of winter. On this day the thermometer rises to four degrees Réaumur; there isa southeasterly breeze; near the Pont de la Tournelle the Seine reaches a level of five feet. Accompanied by his friend Boncert, Jean-Noél Hallé has Bone our early in the morning to explore the odors on the riverbanks, ot rather, to sniffthem out. Both scientists have been entrusted with this task by the Société Royale de Médecine. Starting at the Pont [Neuf they stride along the right bank up to La Rapée. They cross the river almost opposite the sewer of the Salpétrigre in order to fetum on the left bank to their departure point. The meticulous Fecord of their walk of more than ten kilometers provides an accurate Gécture of the vatiety of odors. There is no reference anywhere in the text to anything visual.INTRODUCTION Halles repore makes rather unsitisactory reading for amateurs of the picturesque; similacly, there is no mention of the chatter of ‘washerwomen or of the noisy bustle of dockers on either side of the Seine. Nothing but odors—the discontinuous mapping of a walk that favors rubbish and ignores those parts of the river where the quays for houses are buile directly into the water and where 0 stench can be perceived. ‘This olfaccory survey is not without danger. One incident shows how necessary its to guard against excessive boldness. At the mouth of the dreadful Gobelin tributary Halle’ companion, faving the breeze, walks along the edge of the water and wades through the black mud. Monsieur Boncerf who e this point had turned more dicecty into the southeasterly breeze and had descended to the riverbaak, was ‘overcome by a biting, alkaline, stinging, and stinking odor. Ie af fected his respiratory system so badly chat his throat began to hurt ‘witha half an hour and his tongue became noticeably swollen. Af- fected by these poisonous vapors, be warned me to return #0 the ‘oad strsightaway, because [had remained at the easternmost point of che bank that had been infested by these sediments, and hence ‘with my back to the wind, I mysel? did nor experience anything vnpleasanc+ Bur this was no more than minor skirmish. The long battle with stench provided incomparably more dramatic episodes. Consider an- other incident cight years earlier. On March 23, 1782, the most famous experts in hygiene and chemistry gather in front of the Hotel de la Grenade in the rue de la Pazcteminetie, The cesspool of the building is to be cleaned out. The fatal character of its effluvi is well known. Moreover, the landlady is certain that the medical students have buried beneath the feces arms, legs, and other parts of the hhuman body by the buckerful. The extent of the danger is without precedent. The Académie Royale des Sciences has dispatched the academicians Lavoisier, Le Roy, and Fougeroux to make an on-the- spot inspection. The chemists Macquer and Fourcroy and the duc de La Rochefoucauld, the abbé Tessier, and Jean-Noél Hallé have ‘come by order of the Sociéré Royale de Medécine. They all are supposed to test the effectiveness of a new antimephitic substance; its inventor, Sicur Jenin, has daringly asserted that ic will destroy foul smells and quell siasmas Icis acold day, a mere two degress Réaumur around noon, The INTRODUC ION ionic wind is blowing from the north. There has been a heavy snowfall during the morning. In shore, meteorological conditions appear fa- vorable. While Janin sprinkles his substance, Jean-Noél Hallé and AbbE Tessier climb up and dowa ladders in order to measure the varying intensity of the stench. For hours the experiment, which began between eight and aine ia the morning, proceeds without incident. Then, around three in the afternoon, comes a dramatic tara Of events: one of the cesspool cleaners suffers a ft of asphyxiation and slips off the ladder into the cesspool. He is pulled out extreme difficulty, ‘The onlookers lean over the mortally ill cleaner. A young man tries in vain to save him by administering artificial respiration. At this point Monsieur Verville, an expert, intervenes. He is an spector for a company that makes the ventilators which have been used for some years during the cleaning of cesspools. Hallé graph ically describes the fate of the hapless Verville. He had scarcely inhaled the si chat was coming from the mouth of the mortally ill man when he shouted “I am a dead maa!” and fell down unconscious... saw that he was making an extreme cffor co regain his breath; he was held by the atms, as he reared fap wih a loud groan, his chest and his stomach moved up and down alterastely in volene convulsive movements, He had lost com sciousness; his limbs were cold; hie pulse became weaker and ‘weaker... Occasionally his mouth even filled with foam, his limbs became stif, and the sick man appeared 10 be having a geauine epileptic fc? Fortunately Monsieur Vervill esis conciousness. He has done to more thn inhale she breath of « morally il person an fe 6 soonable ogo home, But oralong inc he sues rom afer Ashe explain, cesspool gic hat have been tans ase ea moe tering than those that theesten to uffocte the ney ot the boom ofthe cesspool Stay with Jeat-Noe! Haile «moment longer, this time oso: roy hin on his general medial pace. The following eno Baty detailed, but not a single word should be omitted; it describes vais pathogenic odors that develop in tha olfactory infers, the hospital” a 7 ———- ‘There is a stench chat is similar to the one exuded by clothes, and there is a moldy sme chat is less noticeable but nevertheless more 3INTRODUCTION unpleasant because of the gencral revulsion it arouses. A. thid, hich might be called the odor of decomposition, may be described as & mixture of the acidic, the sickly, and the fetid; it provolees nausea rather than offending the nose. This mixture accompanies decomposition and isthe most repellent among al the odors co be fencountered ina hospital. Another odor, which makes the nose and eyes burn, results from uncleanliness. It gives the impression chat the air contains something like powder, and, if one looks for the source, one is certain to find damp moldy laundey, a pile of rubbish or clothes and bedciothes infested by fermenting miasmas, ech infectious material has is distinctive exhalation. Doctors know the special smell of aseptic wound, ofa cancerous agent, and the pes tential odor that is spread by caries, But what physicians have learned of this subject from experience can be tested by aayone ‘who compares the various odors inthe wards, [athe pediatic ward the smelt is sour and stinking; in the women's wards itis sweet and pputid; the men's wards, on the other hand, enude a strong odor that merely stinks and hence is not to repulsive. Ahough there is now a greater emphasis on cleanliness thaa in eatler times, in the wards occupied by the good poor of Bicéte there prevails a flat odor that produces an effect of nausea in delicate constitutions.” Hallé’s statements and behavior are by no mesns uousual. A. careful reading of contemporary texts reveals a collective hypersen- sitivity to odors ofall sorts. Pleasure at the sight ofthe landscape of aan English garden or che blueprint of an ideal city is paralleled by horror of the ciy air, which is infested by miasmas.* But we moderns tisk an anachronistic perspective. From the anguished quest of Jean- Noél Hallé onward, something changes in the way smells are per- ceived and analyzed. This book traces the course of that change. What is the meaning of this more refined alertness to smell? ‘What produced the mysterious and alarming strategy of deodoriza- tion that causes us to be intolerant of everything that offends our muted olfactory environment? By what stages has this far-reaching, anthropological transformation taken place? What are the social stakes? What kinds of interests are behind this change in our evaluative schemas and symbolic systems concerning the sense of smell? Lucien Febvre was among the first ro recognize the problem; the history of olfactory perception is one of the many avenues of inves- ‘igation that he has opened up.’ Since thea historians have turned their attention to the senses of sight and smell; in the case of sight, 4 project stimulated by the discovery of the grest panoptic dream Ah: INTRODUCTION (its claim to attention further strengthened by developments in aes- thetic theory); in the case of taste, a project sheltered behind the desire to analyze the rituals and forms of sociability of everyday life. In this sphere as well, the sense of smell has suffered from an un- remitting process of discrediting since the time when a new offensive against the olfactory intensities of public space was being sketched ‘The time has come to trace the conflic-laden history of the perception of smells and to study the logic of the systems of images from which that history has been generated. But i is also necessary to relate divergent modes of perception to social structures. Ie would be futile co analyze social tensions and conflicts without accounting for the different kinds of sensibilities that decisively influence them, Abhorrence of smells produces its own form of social power. Foul- smelling rubbish appears to threaten the social order, whereas the reassuring victory of the hygienic and the fragrant promises to but- cess is stabilicy Initially there seems to be considerable accord between Halle’s behavior and he philosophical positions of his time. The subtle scasieviey with which he approaches the pheaouieus of seusury per ception reflects the influence of sensualism upon scientific method. Sensualist theory, which was based on the thought of Locke, had been developed in basic outline by Maubec as early as 1705." A {generation later it had been given greater precision by David Harley, ‘whose wricings were translated into French in 1753. The theory had been transformed into a logical srstem by the time Condillac pub- lished his two main works, Essai sur origine des connaissances bumaines (746) and Traité des sensations (1754). For Locke, understanding ‘was an “autonomous principle endowed with activity of its own”; for Condilla, in contrast, it was no more than “the sum total of a com= binarion of psychic activities."* Judgment, desire, lust, and craving are nothing but modified expressions of sensation, Aad everyone remembers Condillac’s proof of this: the fictitious starue that, in coming alive, confuses the sense of its own existence with che fra Brance of a rose which it frse smells ‘Thenceforth all scientists, all philosophers have found themselves Obliged to engage with sensvalism. However great theit resistance, they have been unable co escape its influence.” These, however, are ‘mere episodes in the history of philosophy during the Enlightenment. ‘The important point here conceras the developing alertness to the 5INTRODUCTION sensory environment. The senses “increasingly [became] analytical ‘ols, sensitive gauges for the degree of pleasaneness or unpleasant- ness of the physical environment.” While Hallé with his sensitive ‘nose pursued the menace of germs, an optimist like Abbé Pluche invited his readers t0 enjoy the spectacle of Nature." ‘The philosophers, however, paid litle aration to the sense of smell. This neglect reinforces Lucien Febvre's argument that the sense of smell has declined in importance since the begining of che modern period." Moreover, scientific discourse has been reluctant to address this issue, given the extent to which itis riddled with contradictions; science has oscllared between appreciating and de- preciating olfactory phenomena. The baffling poverty of the lan- ‘guage, lack of understanding of the nature of odors, and the refusal of some scientists to abandon the spiritus rector ("guiding spirit”) theory all help to explain the abundance of muddled thinking and fortuous writing on the subject. A few fairly simple stereotypes demonstrate the paradoxical narure of the sense of smell. Olfaction as the sense of lust, desize, and impulsiveness is associated with sensuality. Smelling and sniffing are associared with animal behav ior. If olfaction were his most important sense, man's linguistic incapacity to deserihe olfactory sensations would turn him into a creature tied to his environment.'® Because they are ephemeral, ol- factory sensations can never provide a persistent stimulus of though. ‘Thus the development of the sease of smell seems to be inversely related ro the development of intelligence. Unlike the senses of hearing and sight, valued on the basis of a perpetually repeated Platonic prejudice, olfaction is also relatively Lscless in civilized society. According to Count Albrecht von Haller, “The sense of smell was less important to [man}, for he was destined to walk upright; he was to discover from a distance what might be his food; social life and language were designed co enlighten him about the properties of the things that sppeared co him to be ed- ible."” The best proof of this claim is thas che sense of smell is more highly developed among savages than among civilized men; Pere du ‘Tertre, Pére Laftau, Humboldt, Cook, and the early anthropologists? ‘were agreed on this point. Even if some anecdotes on this subject seem exaggerated, observations of adolescent savages have conficmed that people who have been raised outside civilized sociery have & superior sense of smell.” All these scientific convictions produced a whole array of taboos ee (on the use of the sense of smell. Sniffing and smelling, « predilection for powerful animal odors, the erotic effect of sexual odors—all become objects of suspicion. Such interests, thoughe to be essentially savage, attest 0 a proximity tc animals, a lack of refinement, and ignorance of good manners. In short, they reveal a basic failure at the level of social education. The sense of smell is at the bottom of the hierarchy of senses, slong with the sense of touch, Fusthermore, Kant disqualified ic aesthetically. Jean-Noél Hallé’s behavior contradicts all these assertions and demonstrates the frst paradox: tie sense of smells an animal sens and at the same time, and precisely because of this, the sense of self- preservation. The nose, as the vanguard of the sense of taste, warns us against poisonous substances’ Even more important, the sense of smell locates hidden dangers in the atmosphere. Its capacity t0 test che properties of air is unmatched. The increased importance attributed to the phenomenon of air by chemistry and medical the ories of infection puc a brake on the declining attention to the sense of smell. The nose anticipates dangers; ic recognizes from a distance both harmful mold and the presence of missmas. Ic is repelled by ‘what is in a state of decomposition. Increased recognition of the importance of the air led ro inereased acknowledgment of the im- portance of the sense of smell as an instrament of vigilance. That vigilance produced the guidelines for the reordering of space when the tise of modern chemistry made that reordering unavoidable. A second paradox is thar olfactory sensations are ephemeral, and thos defy comparisons through memory; any attempe to train the sense of smell always results in disappointment. This is why olfaction ‘would not be taken into accoun: in designing the English garden es the privileged place of sensory education and fulfillment, On the other hand, doctors since ancient times have untiringly stressed the importance of the cose as the sensory organ closest 10 the brain, the “origin of sensation." Moreover, “all the fine threads Of the olfactory nerves and plates are extremely loose and full of life. Those that are more removed from this source are firmer and less penetrabe, in line with the general laws on nerves.” Thus, ia ‘contrast co the claims made in association with the frst paradox, the extraordinary subtlety ofthe sense of smell appears to griw with the development of intelligence. The culminating aesthetic proof is that the exquisite fragrance of flowers “appears to be made for man alone.” As the sense of affective betavior and its secrets (in Rousseau’sINTRODUCTION frame of reference, the sense of imagination and of desire), the sense of sell was viewed as capable of shaking man’s inner life more profoundly than were the senses of hearing or of sight. It seemed ‘oreach cothe roots of life In the nineteenth century it was elevated 10 being the privileged instrument of recollection, that which reveals the coexistence of the self and the universe, and, finally, the pre- condicion of intimacy. Furthermore, the rise of narcissism was also (0 favor this hitherto discredieed form of sensory life, in the same ‘way that the obsessive fear of polluted air and the battle against infectious disease emphasized its importance.” Clearly, the theoretical discourse devoted to olféctioa reflects @ ‘maze of faicinating taboos and mysterious attractions. The required Vigilance toward the threat of putrid miasmas, the exquisite enjoy~ ment of fragrant flowers and the perfume of Narcissus counterbal- ance the proscription of sensuous animal instinct. It would be therefore ‘an ovethasiy move to exclude the sense of smell from the history of sensory perceptions simply because of the infatuation with the pres tige of sight and hearing. The following chapters investigate the ‘modes of behavior that were caught up in the vague and contradictory theories formulated about olfaction. Let us therefore begin by ce- turning to the trail opened up by Jean-Noél Hallé PART ONE The Perceptual Revolution, or the Sense of Smell on Trial1 Air and the Threat of the Putrid Unrit asour 1730, before the crucial ad vvance in what was called pneumatic chemistry, air was regarded as an elementary fluid and ‘notas the product ofa chemical combination." After the publication of Secphon Hales's books, however, scientists had become convinced that it entered into che very texture of living organisms. All the mixtures that composed the body, fluids as well as solids, gave off air when their cohesion broke down, This discovery extended the presumed field of action of ai. Henceforth i was thought to act on the living body in multiple ways: by simple contact with the skin or pulmonary membranes, by ex- changes through the pores, and by direce or indirect ingestion (since foodstuffs also contained a proportion of sir, which could be ab- sorbed into the chyle and hence into the blood). By its physical qualities, which varied according to region and season, air was thought co regulate the expansion of the fluids and the tension of the fibers. Once its weight was accepted as a scientific ‘ruth, scientists acknowledged hat it exercised a certain pressure on Organisms. Thus life would be impossible unless an equilibrium were established berween the external and the internal ar; cis equilibrium ‘as precerious, continually reestablished by belching, breaking wind, ‘nd ingestion and inhalation.” A Frightening Brew‘THE PERCEPTUAL REVOLUTION. Ai was easily compressible and was activated by a mechanism ‘equal in force to gravity. The smallest air bubble held ia balance the ‘weight of the atmosphere. This force made respiration possible, ‘maintained internal movements, ensured expansion to compensate for the constriction caused by the weight of the fuid. Air never lost its elasticity of its own accord; but once los it was not automatically regained. Only movement, agitation, permitted the elasticity of the atmosphere to be restored and organisms to survive. Death occurred ‘when the fluid no longer kad the force to enter the lung. ‘The temperature and bumidity of air exerted an influence on bodies. By a subtle interaction of contraction and expansion, they hhelped to break down or restore the tenuous equilibrium between the internal environment and the external atmosphere. Heat tended to rarefy the air, and thus caused a slackening and an elongation of the fibers. The external parts of the body, especially the extremities, swelled. The whole organism experienced weakness, even prostra- tion. Cold air, on the other hand, contracted the solids, compressed the fibers, condensed the fluids, and increased the individual's vigor and activity.* Paradoxically, people continued to believe thae it was sir which cooled the blood and thereby regulated the perceptible as well as the insensible perspiration shown by Sanctorius in the sev- enteenth century.* Ua the one hand, tresh air was therefore partic- ‘larly beneficial.” On the other hand, there was a tisk that overcold air would hamper evaporation of the excreta and cause scurvy. Heavy humidity, morning or evening dew, and persistent rain relaxed the solids and stretched the fibers, because they helped the fluid to enter through the pores and simultaneously weakened the elasticity of the internal air. By a combination of these noxious ef- fects, hot and humid air might jeopardize the precarious equilibrium necessary for survival Air also acted as a passive carries, eransporting an accumulation of foreign particles Like its physical qualities, the load cartied by this heterogeneous fluid varied with time and place and were cor- respondingly described by individual theories far t00 numerous to recount here. But most experts were agreed in regarding air as the substance in which Staht’s phlogiston expanded and, for that reason alone, as indispensable to life. Tt was also seea as the vehicle of heat, According to Boissier de Sauvages, air ensured the transmission of electric uid that maintained its elasticity.” Many thinkers attributed to air the transmission of magnetic particles, even of vague astral influences.* ‘Ai ed she Threas of the Putrid On the other hand, no one at that time doubted that aie also held in a state of suspension the substances given off by bodies. The atmosphere was loaded with emanations from the earth and with the perspirations of vegetable and animal substances. The air of a place ‘was frightening mixture ofthe smoke, sulfurs, and aqueous, volatile, oily, and saline vapors that the earth gave off and, occasionally, the explosive material tha it emitted, the stinking exhalations thec emerged from the swamps, minuce insects and their eggs, spermatic animal- cules, and, far worse, the contagious miasmas that rose from decom- posing bodies. It was this unfathomable mixture whose components Boyle strove—with no great success—to analyze by means of improvised ‘methods.’ This seething mixture, ceaselessly altered by various kinds of diseurbances, was a theater of strange fermentations and trans ‘mutations in thunder and lightning, reconstituted by storms when the superabundant sulfuric particles were removed. It was also a ‘menace in very calm weather, when deadly stagnation transformed sheltered ports and deep bays into sailors’ graveyards. ‘As the physical properties of air acted collectively and individe ually, so the composition of is contents governed the health of organisms, Sulfur, stinking emanations, and noxious vapors threat ened its elasticity and posed threats of asphyxia; metallic acid salts coagulated the blood of the capillary vessels; emanations and miasmas infected the air, incubated epidemics. Rooted in this body of beliefs as the atmospheric vigilance thar underlay neo-Hippocratic medi- ine; in the fifth and fourth centuries 8.C, Hippocrates and his dis- ciples at Kos had already emphasized the influence of air and place on fetal development, the formation of temperaments, che birth of passions, the forms of language, and the spirit of nations"™—ideas Which were to give rise to epidemiology in the later years of the ancien régime, and which inspired the “paeumatopathologieal” table formulated by the Sociéeé Royale de Médecine." “Every animal is adapted to the use of fresh, natural and free is,” wrote Arbuthnor; young animals lacked that tolerance, born of habit, which allowed the city dweller to withstand “artifical aie." Therefore, even before researchers such as Priestley or Lavoisier set ut ro analyze “common air,” breaching ait chat was not loaded with ® noxious burden was being claimed as a natural right; only later did the idea of purity become linked to chat of decomposition. For the ‘omeat, the focus was on the correc equilibrium between the “ainted” ‘ses the “purified,” an impossible quest that ordined a private