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. This fact may not always be 

obvious to human nostrils, apart from intimate contact, but it is well 

known to dogs, to whom their masters are recognizable by smell. When Hue 

traveled in Tibet in Chinese disguise he was not detected by the natives, 

but the dogs recognized him as a foreigner by his smell and barked at him. 

Many Chinese can tell by smell when a European has been in a room.[32] 

There are, however, some Europeans who can recognize and distinguish their 

friends by smell. The case has been recorded of a man who with bandaged 

eyes could recognize his acquaintances, at the distance of several paces, 

the moment they entered the room. In another case a deaf and blind mute 

woman in Massachusetts knew all her acquaintances by smell, and could sort 

linen after it came from the wash by the odor alone. Governesses have been 

known to be able when blindfolded to recognize the ownership of their 

pupil's garments by smell; such a case is known to me. Such odor is 

usually described as being agreeable, but not one person in fifty, it is 

stated, is able to distinguish it with sufficient precision to use it as a 

method of recognition. Among some races, however this aptitude would 

appear to be better developed. Dr. C.S. Myers at Sarawak noted that his 

Malay boy sorted the clean linen according to the skin-odor of the 

wearer.[33] Chinese servants are said to do the same, as well as 

Australians and natives of Luzon.[34] 

Although the distinctively individual odor of most persons is not 

sufficiently marked to be generally perceptible, there are cases 

in which it is more distinct to all nostrils. The most famous