f smell.

Women, like men, frequently give out an odor during coitus or
strong sexual excitement. This odor may be entirely different
from that normally emanating from the woman, of an acid or
hircine character, and sufficiently strong to remain in a room
for a considerable period. Many of the ancient medical writers
(as quoted by Schurigius, _Parthenologia_, p. 286) described the
goaty smell produced by venery, especially in women; they
regarded it as specially marked in harlots and in the newly
married, and sometimes even considered it a certain sign of
defloration. The case has been recorded of a woman who emitted a
rose odor for two days after coitus (McBride, quoted by Kiernan
in an interesting summary, "Odor in Pathology," _Doctor's
Magazine_, December, 1900). There was, it is said (_Journal des
Savans_ 1684, p. 39, quoting from the _Journal d'Angleterre_) a
monk in Prague who could recognize by smell the chastity of the
women who approached him. (This monk, it is added, when he died,
was composing a new science of odors.)

Gustav Klein (as quoted by Adler, _Die Mangelhafte
Geschlechtsempfindungen des Weibes_, p. 25) argues that the
special function of the glands at the vulvar orifice--the
_glandulae vestibulares majores_--is to give out an odorous
secretion to act as an attraction to the male, this relic of
sexual periodicity no longer, however, playing an important part
in the human species. The vulvar secretion, however, it may be
added, still has a more aromatic odor than the vaginal secretion,
with its simple mucous odor, very clearly perceived during
parturition.

It may be added that we still know extremely little concerning
the sexual odors of women among primitive peoples. Ploss and
Bartels are only able to bring forward (_Das Weib_, 1901, bd. 1,
p. 218) a statement concerning the women of New Caledonia, who,
according to Moncelon, when young and ardent, give out during
coitus a powerful odor which no ablution will remove. In abnormal
states of sexual excitement such odor may be persistent, and,
according to an ancient observation, a nymphomaniac, whose
periods of sexual excitement lasted all through the spring-time,
at these periods always emitted a goatlike odor. It has been said
(G. Tourdes, art. "Aphrodisie," _Dictionnaire Encyclopedique des
S