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The power which certain odours possess of exciting venereal desires admits not the slightest doubt, at least as far as the inferior animals are concerned. Nearly all the mammifera exhale or emit, in the rutting season, peculiar emanations serving to announce from afar to the male the presence of the female and to excite in him the sexual desire. Facts have been observed with respect to insects even, which cannot be otherwise accounted for than by odorous effluvia. If, for instance, the female of the bombyx butterfly, be placed in a box accurately closed, it will not be long before several males will be seen flying around the prison, and which could not possibly have known, by means of their visual organs, the presence of their captive Dulcinea. Now the question is, does anything analogous take place in our own species? Many authors assert that there does, and among them Virey, who, speaking of such exhalations, says: "L'extrême propreté des hommes et des femmes, l'habitude de se baigner et de changer souvent de linge font disparaïtre les odeurs génitales. ... On doit aussi remarquer que la haire des Cénobites, la robe des Capucins, le froc des moines, les vêtements rudes et mal-propres de diverses corporations religieuses exposent ceux qui les portent

Un jour ils me menèrent avec eux aux étuves et aux bains de la ville; et comme je refusai de me baigner, parce qu'il eût fallu me déshabiller et que je craignois de montrer mon argent, ils me donnèrent leurs robes