氣味文明史：從惡魔的呼吸到愉悅的香氣，一段文藝復興起始的人類嗅覺開發史

by Robert Muchembled, 羅勃．穆尚布萊, 邱瑞鑾 (Translator)

嗅覺能警示危險逼近，讓我們辨識最佳性伴侶，
但若要你放棄一種感官，很多人卻會選擇它。

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你的臭味和我的臭味定義不同
在數百年前，當衛生下水道尚未發明，當各種香氛還沒被大量開發之前，人類活在一個「氣味」環繞的世界。由於人對氣味的感受，常常是後天形塑的，不同時代的人，對氣味的反應可能也相當不同。比如我們看到法國君主可以在宮殿裡邊拉屎邊自在地和臣子開會，而農村地區也以家門前高高的堆肥來彰顯財富與地位。17世紀以前的人對於糞便尿液不太反感，甚至很喜歡拿放屁來說笑。

嗅覺是狄德羅筆下最縱情聲色的感官
文藝復興以來，視覺、聽覺因為藝術、音樂被視為高級的感官。但嗅覺所對應的氣味卻被視為人類動物性的表徵，是種原始的存在，與獸性及性慾有密切聯想。17世紀之後，在衛道人士眼裡，氣味是隱身在各種瘟疫水汽中的罪惡，甚至是女性私密的下體，女人被視為擁有獨特的臭味。當世界被劃分成善惡兩端，芬芳與惡臭也被拉進這個二分法之中。女人等於惡臭，也就等於了罪惡。

以毒攻毒的氣味防疫法
醫學也對一再爆發的鼠疫的解釋是，因邪惡撒旦呼出的毒氣汙染了空氣。為了掩蓋或抵禦「惡」，以毒攻毒似乎是最直接的方式，例如使用公羊臊味抵擋瘟疫的臭味，用動物腺體的分泌物（麝香）對付惡靈。這些動物氣味如同盔甲可以把人保護起來，成為一種防疫用品，這都是黑死病等流行時，歐洲人使用過的方式。

嗅覺的歷史也是西方文明演進史
在工業化時代，臭味成為階級歧視的標準，也使得上層階級開始壓抑自身的氣味。同時期也有另一種嗅覺變革正在發生。過去兩三千年來，女性被視為比男性臭的生物，女性的經血不但難聞且危險，尤其在16、17世紀，嗅覺上女性更被妖魔化，地位低下。但在18世紀之後，當鼠疫絕跡，饑荒不再，戰爭也遠離。這個平和、享樂，甚至追求享受的世界需要怡人、淡雅的新香味來陪伴它走向文明，此時花香、果香才與女性連結，進而變成為享樂主義的象徵。

嗅覺是最直接的感官，可惜我們不太認識它
受社會文化經驗影響甚深、有許多歷史包袱的嗅覺，其實是唯一可以直通大腦邊緣系統，影響我們情緒的感官，有強烈的個體差異性和標示性，比如當有毒物質逼近時，氣味會讓大腦送出危險的負面訊號。在安全狀態下則送出正面甚至歡愉的訊息，比如有助於物種延續的性吸引力。

2014年據說有科學研究發現人類可以分辨一兆種氣味，遠比過去以為的一萬種還多。但事後又證明這個研究的數據有問題，但香氛產業卻早已因為這個錯誤的數據歡欣鼓舞，大肆宣傳。本書作者認為這也間接證明了，所謂的嗅覺、氣味都是人為定義。因此，在科學研究之外，以人文視角檢視人類對待氣味的態度如何轉變，也同等重要。

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Science, France, Nature

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2017

About the author

Robert Muchembled is a French historian.

Né le 4 mars 1944 à Liévin (62), Robert Muchembled est agrégé d'histoire (1967), docteur de troisième cycle (1974) et docteur d'État en histoire (1985, Université de Paris I-Panthéon Sorbonne, sous la direction de Pierre Goubert). Sa biographie figure dans le Who’s Who et le Who’s Who in the World.
Actuellement professeur de classe exceptionnelle à l'Université de Paris XIII, où il a été nommé en 1986, il avait successivement enseigné dans un lycée, à l'École Normale de Lille, puis à l’université de Lille III, comme assistant et maître de conférences de 1969 à 1986.

Il est l'auteur de 24 ouvrages, dont 7 en collaboration et de plus de 70 articles. Ses travaux sont traduits en 16 langues.

Il pratique l'anglais, comprend l'allemand et le néerlandais. Membre du Centre de recherches en Études Québécoises, de l'Advisory Board du N.W. Posthumus Institute (Pays-Bas), il participe chaque année à de nombreux colloques et congrès internationaux. Il a été membre en 2003-2004 de l’Institute for Advanced Study de Princeton (U.S.A.).

Ses recherches d’histoire culturelle et sociale portent sur l’Europe, notamment sur la France, Paris et sa région.

De 1999 à 2004, il a dirigé un programme de recherches international sur les transferts culturels (European Science Foundation), accueillant plus de 80 chercheurs de 20 pays, qui a produit 6 volumes de synthèse sur le thème de l’intégration culturelle européenne.

http://www.univ-paris13.fr/cresc/inde...
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M...

Reviews

[Richard Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This cultural history of smell focuses mostly on France from the 1500s to through the 1800s. It's a fascinating journey, starting from a time when nasty smells were given as a part of life for everyone, high and low, and were accepted with good humor. In the following era things smelled little better but bad smells became associated with evil and sexual temptation. Rather than bathing, people combatted bad smells with stronger good smells. Women were thought to smell bad and men good, even when the women were clean and the men were sweaty and filthy. Bad smells became associated with disease, particularly the plague, but not because of an understanding that bad smell was connected with microbes and uncleanliness, but because of the idea of disease carrying miasmas. The favored scents of this era were strong perfumes derived from animal products, principally musk, civet and ambergris. But then in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as high fashion worked its way down to the middle classes and a period of general social prosperity came along, there was a switch in preference to floral smells which were softer and more romantic. The book also speaks in passing of the modern era, in which we have moved to a scentless society, in which the ideal smell is the appearance of no smell at all. It was all very interesting, though I would have enjoyed more cross cultural analysis so that I could have better understood whether the path of France was representative of the rest of Europe and the extent, if at all, that similar developments took place in the rest of the world.

This is a book that my dad would have loved, so as I read it I was thinking about how much I would have enjoyed discussing it with him. He had a deeply scatalogical mind and loved talking about shit and the smell of shit. He was fond of telling me that every man's shit smells good to himself, a proposition that I learned from this book goes back at least to Montaigne, perhaps earlier. And he loved to retail folk ideas about the smells of men and women, cloaking them wherever possible under some scholarly veneer. Mr. Muchambled is my dad's secret smelly twin. I think that they would have liked each other.

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the depth into which the author shows how perfumes evolved from a covering for the stench of people to an addition to attract the opposite sex. Heavy on French history yet necessary since the French essentially began the develpment of perfumes and to this day still create some of the best scents used in the world. Interesting was how initially it was primarily for men to smell "nice" and for women to cover the "stench" and "vileness" (in the medieval mind set) of their bodies. Incredibly bad times for women. After the waning of youth relegated women to the compost heaps of society and were then singled out as witches, tortured and burned at the stake as acts of protection by God against demonic forces hatched (though the eyes of Men and the Church at the time) in the souls of women.
The book is well written. Probably not for everyone. Highly academic and detail oriented; still I found it a fascinating read and would recommend it to anyone interested in the Medieval history of smells , essence, and the creation of a huge empire which we know today.

[Sheffielder · Rating 3 out of 5]

(166 pages + introduction, notes, etc) This is a scholarly study with much to recommend it. The title is, however, slightly misleading. It should perhaps say "early modern France," rather than "early modern times". Nowhere else gets much of a mention.

The research is detailed, and the information provided is fascinating in places. On the negative side, the author has a delight in listing inventories; some of the themes are a bit repetitive; and a few chunks of the book are devoted not to smell, but to beauty.

Nonetheless, a good read both for those with an interest in perfumes, and for those interested in the daily ins-and-outs of life in a major Early Modern European nation.

[Sacha · Rating 2 out of 5]

When the library doesn't have it, there's usually a reason. Still, I finished reading it. The conclusion would have been sufficient; it was a nice summary. There was a lot of focus on the smell of poop and role of such in art. Sigh. The main problem was that his first point, that kids love the smell of their own excrement and must be taught to shun it, was so suspicious that I couldn't bring myself to believe any other interesting historical tidbit.

[Mike Clay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unusual story of cultural smells. Mare a scholarly work than for light reading .. interesting fact that perfume developed as mask for the unkind sets of women in the 1700s.

[eight · Rating 3 out of 5]

j'ai un avis

[alexis litteken · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars**