Further, although we are able to distinguish clearly enough between different odours, the identification and the naming of odours does not come easy to us. _Parfumeurs_ and druggists, no doubt, by the daily education of the sense, attain to a high degree of skill in this art, but those who have not cultivated their powers will find it very difficult, as the amusing parlour-game of guessing the names of concealed foodstuffs and spices shows. The difficulty is, like the paucity of olfactory terms, probably due to an absence of ready communication between the olfactory and speech centres in the brain. CHAPTER V SMELL IN FOLK-LORE, RELIGION, AND HISTORY Evidence of olfactory influences is encountered in folk-lore not infrequently, particularly in connection with primitive medicine, and survivals of old olfactory methods of treatment are still extant, not only in the doings of the wise women of our remoter country villages, but also, as we shall see, in modern scientific medicine. Treatment by fumigation is perhaps the most widely prevalent of these. Probably the earliest motive for “smoking” a patient was merely the replacing of an offensive by a pleasant odour, as we find it frequently employed in malodorous conditions. Here the practice links up with ancient ideas on epidemic diseases. Behind this rationale, however, there lies perhaps the idea of association of death with the fœtor of decomposition and the expectation that a pleasant aromatic odour will naturally “obviate the tendency to death.” This view of the matter must have become strengthened among nations like the ancient Egyptians, who had discovered that aromatic substances might be relied upon to preserve the body after death. Even in recent times and countries similar customs have prevailed. Scott in “The Bride of Lammermoor” tells us that rosemary, southernwood, rue and other plants were in Scotland strewn on the body after death, and were “burned by way of fumigation in the chimney.” Be that as it may, we find fumigation employed all over the world as a rite of purification, particularly during the menstrual and puerperal periods, women being at those times regarded as unclean or taboo. Later, in the natural course of evolution, fumigation comes under the category of anti-demoniac remedies.