Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4: Sexual Selection In ManEllis, Havelock
Science
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4: Sexual Selection In Man
Ellis, Havelock
Sex; Sex (Psychology)
concerned with somewhat more complex or somewhat more refined sexual
odors; they are not specifically different from the human odors and they
mingle with them harmoniously. Popular language bears witness to the
truth of this statement, and the normal and abnormal human odors, as we
have already seen, are constantly compared to artificial, animal, and
plant odors, to chloroform, to musk, to violet, to mention only those
similitudes which seem to occur most frequently.
The methods now employed for obtaining the perfumes universally
used in civilized lands are three: (1) the extraction of
odoriferous compounds from the neutral products in which they
occur; (2) the artificial preparation of naturally occurring
odoriferous compounds by synthetic processes; (3) the manufacture
of materials which yield odors resembling those of pleasant
smelling natural objects. (See, e.g., "Natural and Artificial
Perfumes," _Nature_, December 27, 1900.) The essential principles
of most of our perfumes belong to the complex class of organic
compounds known as terpenes. During recent years a number of the
essential elements of natural perfumes have been studied, in many
cases the methods of preparing them artificially discovered, and
they are largely replacing the use of natural perfumes not only
for soaps, etc., but for scent essences, though it appears to be
very difficult to imitate exactly the delicate fragrance achieved
by Nature. Artificial musk was discovered accidentally by Bauer
when studying the butyltoluenes contained in a resin extractive.
Vanillin, the odoriferous principle of the vanilla bean, is an
aldehyde which was first artificially prepared by Tiemann and
Haarmann in 1874 by oxidizing coniferin, a glucoside contained in
the sap of various coniferæ, but it now appears to be usually
manufactured from eugenol, a phenol contained in oil of cloves.
Piperonal, an aldehyde closely allied to vanillin, is used in
perfumery under the name of heliotropin and is prepared from oil
of sassafras and oil of camphor. Cumarine, the material to which
tonka bean, sweet woodruff, and new-mown hay owe their
characteristic odors, was synthetically prepared by W.H. Parkin
in 1868 by heating sodiosalicylic aldehyde with acetic anhydride,
though now more cheaply prepared from an herb growing in Florida.
Irone, which has the perfume of violets, was isolated in 1893
from a ketone contained in orris-root; and ionone, another ketone
which has a very closely similar odor of fresh violets and was
isolated after some years' further work, is largely used in the
preparation of violet perfume. Irone and ionone are closely
similar in composition to oil of turpentine which when taken into
the body is partly converted into perfume and gives a strong odor
of violets to the urine. "Little has yet been accomplished toward
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