Smells

Ashill Parish Church and Cemetery
© Godric Godricson

"Undertakers state that they sometimes experience, in particularly crowded grave-yards, a sensation of faintness and nausea without perceiving any offensive smell. Dr. Riecke appears to conclude, from various instances which are given, that emanations from putrid remains operate in two ways, one set of effects being produced through the lungs by impurity of the air from the mixture of irrespirable gases ; the other set, through the olfactory nerves by powerful, penetrating, and offensive smells. On the whole, the evidence tends to establish the general conclusion that offensive smells are true warnings of sanitary evils to the population".

From  : PRACTICE OF INTERMENT IN TOWNS EDWIN CHADWICK, (1843) [Link]