On the other hand, it is said
that the use of tobacco deadens the sensitiveness of the
masculine nose. Both these statements seem to be without
foundation. The use of a large amount of perfume is rather a
question of taste than a question of sensory acuteness (not to
mention that those who live in an atmosphere of perfume are, of
course, only faintly conscious of it), and the chemist perfumer
in his laboratory surrounded by strong odors can distinguish them
all with great delicacy. As regards tobacco, in Spain the
_cigarreras_ are women and girls who live perpetually in an
atmosphere of tobacco, and Senora Pardo Bazan, who knows them
well, remarks in her novel, _La Tribuna_, which deals with life
in a tobacco factory, that "the acuity of the sense of smell of
the _cigarreras_ is notable, and it would seem that instead of
blunting the nasal membrane the tobacco makes the olfactory
nerves keener."
"It was the same as if I was in a sweet apple garden, from the
sweetness that came to me when the light wind passed over them
and stirred their clothes," a woman is represented as saying
concerning a troop of handsome men in the Irish sagas (_Cuchulain
of Muirthemne_, p.
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