Attempting to put the sense of smell on the historical map, the author of this book conveys the power that smells - from the seductress's civet to the ubiquitous excremental odours of city cesspools - exercized over the lives (and deaths) of Frenchmen in the 18th and 19th centuries. Integrating an impressive range of disciplines - the histories of science and medicine, urban studies, public health, psychohistory, and literary criticism - Corbin lays bare the deeper implications of smell for science, society, and literature.