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Setting it Straight - Issue #11

Written by Nobel Laureate Professor Peter Doherty

The 16th century French philosopher, Montaigne, remarks in his Essay on Smell that: “I have ever found myself little subject to epidemic diseases, that are caught, either by conversing with the sick or bred by the contagion of the air.” Maybe he practiced social distancing but, when Montaigne mentions contagion, his understanding was different from ours. Back then, people believed in the ‘miasma theory’, that infection is a consequence of breathing in the odoriferous, ‘bad air’ that reflects proximity to rotting organic material. Given 16th century sanitation practices, there was always plenty of that around in towns of any size. Women carried a posie, or nosegay, of sweet-smelling flowers to provide some relief and, no doubt, to keep any plagues away. Montaigne goes on to observe that: “Physicians might…extract greater utility from odours than they do.”