In approaching the specifically sexual aspect of odor in the human species we may start from the fundamental fact—­a fact we seek so far as possible to disguise in our ordinary social relations—­that all men and women are odorous.  This is marked among all races.  The powerful odor of many, though not all, negroes is well known; it is by no means due to uncleanly habits, and Joest remarks that it is even increased by cleanliness, which opens the pores of the skin; according to Sir H. Johnston, it is most marked in the armpits and is stronger in men than in women.  Pruner Bey describes it as “ammoniacal and rancid; it is like the odor of the he-goat.”  The odor varies not only individually, but according to the tribe; Castellani states that the negress of the Congo has merely a slight “gout de noisette” which is agreeable rather than otherwise.  Monbuttu women, according to Parke, have a strong Gorgonzola perfume, and Emin told Parke that he could distinguish the members of different tribes by their characteristic odor.  In the same way the Nicobarese, according to Man, can distinguish a member of each of the six tribes of the archipelago by smell.  The odor of Australian blacks is less strong than that of negroes and has been described as of a phosphoric character.  The South American Indians, d’Orbigny stated, have an odor stronger than that of Europeans, though not as strong as most negroes; it is marked, Latcham states, even among those who, like the Araucanos, bathe constantly.  The Chinese have a musky odor.  The odor of many peoples is described as being of garlic.[30]

A South Sea Islander, we are told by Charles de Varigny, on coming to Sydney and seeing the ladies walking about the streets and apparently doing nothing, expressed much astonishment, adding, with a gesture of contempt, “and they have no smell!” It is by no means true, however, that Europeans are odorless.  They are, indeed, considerably more odorous than are many other races,—­for instance, the Japanese,—­and there is doubtless some association between the greater hairiness of Europeans and their marked odor, since the sebaceous glands are part of the hair apparatus.  A Japanese anthropologist, Adachi, has published an interesting study on the odor of Europeans,[31] which he describes as a strong and pungent smell,—­sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter,—­of varying strength in different individuals, absent in children and the aged, and having its chief focus in the armpits, which, however carefully they are washed, immediately become odorous again.  Adachi has found that the sweat-glands are larger in Europeans than in the Japanese, among whom a strong personal odor is so uncommon that “armpit stink” is a disqualification for the army.  It is certainly true that the white races smell less strongly than most of the dark races, odor seeming to be correlated to some extent with intensity of pigmentation, as well as with hairiness; but even the most scrupulously clean Europeans all smell.