Hacker News Reader

Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

I can't help but think this is intensely exaggerated.

I've spent a lot of time in third-world countries where most people have no access to regular medical care and certainly not dentistry... and there's no stench of rotting teeth.

There aren't smells of spoiled vegetables or rancid cheese or sour milk -- things are left fresh or composted out back or milk turns to yogurt but it doesn't smell.

People may smell if you're within a few inches of them... but you're usually not. And likewise horses can be smelly when you're right next to them.

But if Paris were really that stench-filled, surely there would be third-world places today that are the same? But I've never encountered anywhere anything like that.

Feels like urban legend to me. Just like the myth about how spices were used to mask the smell of rotten meat. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions#...

View on HN

>> surely there would be third-world places today that are the same?

You seem to be implying that modern third world is so far behind so as to resemble 18th century Paris. While I agree with you that the quote in parent seems exaggerated I don't think even a modern very poor country will stink like 18th century London and Paris. 18th century was a time of horse driven transport and little to no sewer system. The main stench would be from those two things which in modern times is mostly absent even in poor third world countries.

Yes there are poor regions which are less developed than 18th century European cities. Many places in the world still do not have refrigeration, running water, electricity, sewers, paved roads, mechanized farming/milling/textile production, etc.

People carry their own water, chop their own firewood, cook over a hearth fire in small hand-made thatched mud huts, make their own furniture, grow their own food (possibly using animals to plough), prepare their own food by hand from scratch, make their own clothing, do their laundry in a stream, poop in the woods or in an outhouse, clean themselves in a sweat bath or with a damp cloth, carry goods from place to place on their backs or in simple unpowered carts, etc.

Though there are fewer and fewer such places as time goes on. For instance rural Mexico has changed dramatically in the past 2 generations.

But those are rural. I knew an old gentleman who lived in St Louis around 1930-1940 and he told me he loved leaving the city to live in the country during the summer to get away from the smell.

Well, you could go to shantytowns in e.g. West Africa, South Asia, or South America if you want an idea of what crowded fast-growing cities are like.

They aren’t precisely “less developed” than 18th century Europe, but they are more crowded and often have comparable hygiene, medical care, etc. Again they often lack basic amenities like running water, sewers, and grid electricity. The biggest difference is probably that many of these have much worse air pollution than anywhere in the 18th century.

Yes, there are many places which smell potent if you are used to living in a wealthy suburb, but the smells are not really like the description above, especially after a week or two of acclimation, except maybe for extraordinarily dainty hypersensitive people. Patrick Süskind is exaggerating for effect.

I'm not sure, air quality was extremely poor in 18th century Europe. The term smog was coined in 1905 (after more than 100 years of deadly smog) in London. https://www.theguardian.com/science/the-h-word/2016/dec/09/p...

Exactly. Modern shantytowns are a great comparison, and in terms of smells they're... fine. It's a total non-issue, unless indeed you're "extraordinarily dainty hypersensitive" I suppose maybe.

I'm not sure what air pollution you're referring to though?

Of course. It's from a book called "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer", the whole book is about smells/odors/fragrances of all kinds.

It's a great read.

I really think it has to do with how some places are laid out. When I visited New Orleans the experience was similar to the Paris description in many ways, because the french quarter had like no ventilation with the narrow streets and just reeked of trash and rotting seafood due to all the haphazard dumpster locations in that part of the city. Just poorly laid out and it absolutely reeked, especially when the humidity just lingered in the air.

Modern third-world countries are likely not as densely packed and if they are, they have higher standards of sanitation than even 18th century London. In those days, sanitation and proper plumbing was basically non-existent.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com