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Smelling Salts

Page history last edited by Rebekah King 10 years ago

 

                                                                                         

                                                                                                                 (Image 1)

 

 

Introduction

 

The term ‘smelling salts’ can be used to describe various preparations of ammonium carbonate ((NH4)2CO3H2O), a compound which, by irritating the linings of the airways, provokes an inhalation reflex in humans which supposedly prompts more vigorous breathing. Variants of this substance have been used since the classical era; Pliny mentions Hammoniacus sal, seemingly the ancestor of the later sal ammoniac , which was used by textile dyers in medieval England in the preparation of vegetable dyes. (McCrory) By the eighteenth century, this same sal ammoniac had cemented its reputation as a reviving agent, apparently capable of restoring consciousness to the diseased, the injured and, as would become particularly significant, the fainting woman.  

 

 It was then that the popularity of smelling salts ballooned. Portable preparations carried in specially designed bottles began to be regarded as both a useful and a fashionable commodity, and it is in the eighteenth century that this preparation assumed its role as a predominantly female medicine. A woman, it seems, might perform her behaviour differently with the knowledge that the sal ammoniac was close at hand. As we shall see, the sentimental novels of the time impressed upon the cultured mind the fact that fainting, and being revived again by smelling salts, was a frequent occupation of the elegant modern woman.  Aside from this fictional use, smelling salts were considered in several medical journals to be capable of a kind of resurrection, a restoration of soul to body in a manner which raised questions about the nature of the life force itself. Which of these uses gained more popular significance in the eighteenth century is something we will uncover as we examine the history of this widely used and multifaceted substance. 

 

The smelling bottle was thus a highly significant object. Society had yet to reach the age in which policemen’s ‘lady-revivers’ became the norm and ornate and perfumed preparations reached their commercial and cultural peak: the zenith of the smelling salt era remains the nineteenth century. However, the eighteenth century itself was most certainly the period in which the foundations of this popularity were lain; it is then that smelling salts not only found ubiquity, but began to exert a powerful influence on the writing British mind.   

 


 

Other Names

 

It is important to note that ‘smelling salts’ may refer to any of the following terms, most of which were used interchangeably in the eighteenth century. Interestingly, these more euphemistic terms, particularly the French ‘eau-de-luce’ are far more common than the literal English term ‘smelling salts’ as, perhaps, is fitting for a substance which adopted a fashionable, rather than purely practical role as a medicine. All definitions are taken from the Oxford English Dictionary:

 

Spirit of hartshorn, also simply hartshorn: the aqueous solution of ammonia (whether obtained from harts' horns or otherwise). salt of hartshorn: carbonate of ammonia; smelling salts.

 

Sal volatile, n. Etymology: < modern Latin sal volātile 'volatile salt': see SAL n. and VOLATILE adj. Ammonium carbonate, esp. an aromatic solution of this used as a restorative in fainting fits. 

 

Eau-de Luce: n. a medicinal preparation of alcohol, ammonia, and oil of amber, used in India as an antidote to snake-bites, and in England sometimes as smelling salts. 

 

Also: smelling bottle, swooning-water (mostly 17th century), melancholy water (rare)

 


 

Precursors: Perfumes, Pomanders and Vinaigrettes

 

Portable perfumes had been vastly popular for many centuries before smelling salts themselves gained widespread usage. The power of perfume lay, to some extent, in the enduring belief that disease, or even demonic influence might be kept at bay by sweet smells.  As Holly Dugan writes in her study The Ephemeral History of Perfume: Scent and Sense in Early Modern England,  "Medical understandings of olfaction bridged Galenic humoral theory with Hippocratic notions of disease and contagion, and perfumes were crucial to maintaining a body's internal balance during exposure to contaminated air." (105) Pomanders, (from the French 'pomme d'ambre' meaning, apple of amber) made it both convenient and fashionable to transport a beneficial scent. The Encyclopaedia Britannica describes the pomander thus: 

 

     A small metal (sometimes china) container designed to hold a ball of aromatic spices or herbs. Worn suspended from neck or girdle or attached to the finger      by a ring, it was believed to be a protection against infections and noxious smells. As fashionable jewelry in the late Middle Ages, pomanders were decorative      objects often enriched with gems and enamels. Late in the 16th century, the original sphere shape was divided into several segments in order to accommodate      a variety of powdered spices, and soon afterward pomanders in the form of dice, skulls, and books appeared. ("pomander". Encyclopaedia Britannica

 

                                                      Antique pomander

                                         Photograph showing the inside compartments of a pomander, used to store different scents (Image 2)

 

 

             File:Rosary with pomander.jpg   Jacob Cornelisz Van Oostsanen:Portrait Of Jan Gerritz. Van Egmond Van De Dijenborgh, Bust-Length Wearing A Black Fur-Trimmed Coat, Holding A Pomander, Seen Within An Arched Decorated Embrasure, A Landscape Beyond

 

 

                    Early examples of pomanders, notice the association between the perfume and the rosary beads. This clearly signals the pervading  

                                          Early Modern notion that smells could have religious and supernatural powers. (Image 3) (Image 4) (Image 5)

 

 

Although still occasionally in use, historians of perfume have noted that "During the 18th century the use of solid perfume (associated with the pomanders of earlier times) gave way to liquid perfume, usually with a base of alcohol or vinegar." ("Perfume Bottles: 17th Century to Modern") These vinaigrettes were equally ornate in design as pomanders, and were transported on one's person in a similar fashion. Due to the common practice of reviving an individual by smearing their forehead with vinegar, vinaigrettes became associated with fainting fits or bouts of sickness as well as their more straightforward function as perfume. This heralded the onset of smelling bottles with their more potent ingredients and purely restorative function. By the time smelling salts arrived on the fashionable scene therefore, the sense of smell had long been associated with a myriad of benefits, both medicinal and ornamental.  The notion that one might carry a scented preparation to ward off odour, sickness and even supernatural interference was heavily ingrained in the European mind. By the eighteenth century, it needed only the assurance of enlightened doctors that sal ammoniac had genuine medical strengths to instate smelling salts as the modern incarnation of an ancient obsession with perfume and smell. 

 

 

                                                     

 

                                                                 An eighteenth century vinaigrette, cousin of the smelling bottle (Image 6) 

 

                                                         

 

                         French women making the most of a continental fashion for vinaigrette canes, sticks with a vinegar soaked sponge concealed in

                                                                                        the handle in case of fainting fits (Image 7)

 


 

Medicinal Properties

 

With the age of Enlightenment came a rejection of certain notions about smell, along with vigorous scepticism regarding some of the powers traditionally ascribed to perfume. Yet preparations of smelling salts with ingredients like ammonia or hartshorn, which produced a visible and immediate effect, satisfied the new desire for objective proof and sal ammoniac accordingly rose to widespread popularity.

 

Pretensions to enlightened thinking didn't prevent a variety of claims, some more wildly improbable than others, being made about the substance's effects.The medical literature of the eighteenth century describes a panoply of uses for smelling salts, so much so that they seem to have been regarded as something of a panacea for all maladies involving loss of consciousness. The most common role of Eau-de-Luce, for which it is still best remembered, was to revive an individual from a fainting fit or swoon. Dr Daniel Cox, a chemist who published a book entitled  Family medical compendium; or directions for medicine chests in 1790, advises that one’s cabinet of medicines should always be supplied with

 

               A smelling bottle with smelling salts or Eau de Luce for Sudden Faintings (30)

 

 William Chamberlaine, writing in The west-India seaman’s medical directory (1785), outlines this usage in more detail:

 

                Spirit of Hartshorn: In fainting, useful to be held to the nose; and a tea-spoonful may be given in a tumbler of cold water; thirty or forty drops in any warm drink, given in feverish complaints, or coughs, causes a gentle breathing sweat.(13) 

 

Charmberlaine also extols the benefits of smelling salts in cases of extreme coughing fits and, in The practice of medicine made easy, written by Joseph Fisher, this is extended to cases of asthma: 

 

I have often known twenty five drops of spirit of hartshorn, given in a glass of water, to remove an asthmatic fit, in a very short time. (20) 

 

The potency of smelling salts even extended to its use as an antidote to viper poison (as described on page 133 of Cases, medical, chirugical, and anatomical, with observations, a translated work by the Academie royale des sciences). Such was its potency, in fact, that the public was often warned against excessive consumption. One anecdote from The European magazine and London review tells of a young man’s narrow escape from death when he accidentally drank an entire bottle of the substance. The incident is worth including here in full since, apart from being darkly comic, it illustrates the power attributed to that “fiery ingredient” sal ammoniac:

 

During the vacation, being at home with his mother, who for several months had been confined to her bed, and was attended by Sir Richard Jebb, having a cold, he was ordered a white emulsion draught; and that being by the servant confused with a phial of eau-de-luce, employed to revive his mother in her fainting, he in mistake took up this identical bottle, and drank it off immediately, to the amount of two ounces. Feeling this fiery ingredient within him, he screamed aloud, “he was burning alive!” burst out of the room, and rushing into the kitchen for water, which he found boiling on the fire, he then seized upon the butter on the shelf, first knocking down the servants who attempted to hold him from leaping up, thinking he was mad, and he almost instantly devoured a roll of it. His dying mother, roused by the mournful cry “I am poisoned I am poisoned!” got out of bed, and coming down the stairs, found her son now faint, and weltering in the blood which he vomited up in torrents; and no conscious of her own ills, tried to soothe those of her son...night and morning, [he] took nothing but linseed oil, being supported wholly by glisters; and by dint of a fine constitution and a natural cheerfulness of mind, he miraculously escaped, but reduced to a mere shadow. (4-5)

 

Such accounts did little to dent the popularity of smelling salts, rather they impressed upon the public mind their real, observable properties. This attitude was, of course, primarily encouraged by those who sought to sell these preparations. One particularly effusive advert for one preparation of Eau-de-luce sums up in brilliant hyperbole the many usages of Eau-de-luce:

 

By smelling to it, it gives instantaneous relief in all sorts of head-aches, sickness, fainting, sudden frights, hysterick and hypochondriacal disorders, lowness of spirits, convlusive and epileptic fits, apoplexies, vertigoes, and all the whole train of nervous disorders. Add to these most excellent qualities, only by opening the stopper now and then, it gives a most agreeable flavour to a room, or any publick place; and by its penetrating and difficult effluvia, is a certain preventive from the small-pox, measles and every kind of infectious disorder. In short, considering the many sudden disorders we are liable to, no one is really safe without it. (Dalmahoy 1)

 

The medical use of smelling salts was thus widespread and well-documented, extolled by many (particularly those who traded in it) for its variety of virtues. It is a fairly clear indication of an object's popularity when the satirists of the age feel able to mock its use, and this was certainly the case with the smelling bottle. Responding cynically to such claims that 'no one is really safe without it', various writers joked that Eau-de-luce was little better than a quack's concoction. As Sarah Richards writes “Jonathan Swift, well known for his scatological preoccupations, and the physician Tobias Smollett, recommended stale urine left in the chamber pots...as useful a remedy as smelling salts.” (152) Nevertheless, sal ammoniac was commended throughout the eighteenth century by genuine medical handbooks and the majority of the population remained convinced, to some degree, of its miraculous powers. Smelling salts clearly functioned as a crucial yet commonplace commodity, a staple in the medical chest of an enlightened individual. 

 


 

Smelling Salts and Resurrection

 

It is worth noting that the medicinal potency of smelling salts was often expressed, even by doctors, in terms evoking literal resurrection. Lacking a clear notion of what connected the soul or life force to the body, eighteenth century practitioners seem to have regarded the restorative capacities of sal volatile as a means of literally re-animating a body, of drawing back whatever essence it was that had escaped in the minutes after death.

 

One text, bearing the extraordinary title Relief from accidental death, compiled by Alexander Jonson, describes the means of restoring life to what he describes as a newly-made corpse.

 

The bodies of drowned persons, generally found wet, cold and stiff, must immediately be well dried, placed in a temperate air, and rubbed with dry and warm flannels, with other cloths, or a flesh-brush. If dry rubbing does not soon prove efficacious, then some spirits are to be sprinkled upon the rubbers; the spirits thus used are volatile spirit of sal ammoniac, hartshorn, or eau-de-luce, mixed with brandy, rum, or malt spirits. (10)

 

Similarly, The complete English physician lists Eau-de-luce as one of the medicines that could revive a ‘stillborn’ baby. This fascination with the possibility that a restorative substance might re-animate the dead would lead to experiments in the nineteenth century which would inspire Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. As Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen writes “Mary’s husband Percy’s first wife, Harriet, had drowned in 1816. Rescuers took her lifeless body and tried to revive it using smelling salts, vigorous shaking, electricity and artificial respiration with bellows.” (50)

 

In the eighteenth century, the smelling-bottle was therefore becoming an object of huge hypothetical power, a household item which combined an ideal of enlightened medical process with the seemingly miraculous and strange. 

 

                                                       The Storm, or The Shipwreck - Theodore Gericault

 

                                            A case of drowning similar to those described by medical writers when recommending smelling salts (Image 8)

 

 


 

Smelling Salts and Class

 

However universal the medical benefits of ‘Eau-de-Luce’, the smelling bottle itself was an object almost exclusively associated with the elite. The fact that many doctors emphasised the wisdom, even the necessity of having smelling salts constantly to hand provided the perfect excuse for a new fashionable accoutrement on which the rich might spend their money. 

 

When we look at surviving examples of the smelling bottles of the time, we find that they are almost exclusively ornate, made from the most expensive materials and often bearing cameos, miniature paintings or fine carving. These are objects which advertise their unaffordability, not merely a medical receptacle but an accessory of fashion. In fact, the more we read of the history and use of smelling salts, the more we realise that this facet of their appeal soon overtook even the most miraculous of their medical benefits. It is crucial, therefore, when considering the resonance of smelling salts in the eighteenth century that we remember how this object primarily functioned in daily life as a performance of privilege. The bottle became an extension of the social display afforded by one’s clothing and an item which, like Snuff Boxes, was both stimulant and accessory. 

 

Consider, for example, this extract from a poem written in the latter half of the eighteenth century in which smelling salts, along with cosmetics, are condemned as an exclusively upper class luxury: 

 

          But Melpomene and Calliope

          Are poorish ninnies in a shop!

          With letters, quills and ink acquainted, 

          No eau de luce, no rouge they wanted,

          Mere country girls, they never painted

          (Ettrick 18)

 

Here Melpomene, the tragic muse, and Calliope, the muse of epic verse, are distinguished by a rusticity which leaves them innocently lacking in such elaborate accoutrements as eau de luce. Such a concoction clearly belongs, in the poet William Ettrick's mind, to the ladies of the town with their vain affectations and chronic disregard for finer arts. The salt's original purpose as restorative is sidelined here: it is figured only as an object belonging to the dressing tables of the fashionable elite. 

 

To illustrate this further we need only compare the following images. The first two are examples of medical chests dating from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, both of which contain substances used to make smelling salts. In one of them we we can clearly see the bottles labelled ‘Spirit of Sal Volatile’ and ‘Hartshorn’. The objects here, the actual bottles themselves, are overtly practical. If they are acting as part of a social display it is only the performance of authority on the part of the doctor, an aspect of his legitimising paraphernalia. Clearly these bottles eschew any decorative excess:

 

 

                                                                     

                                                            'Remarkable medicine chest'- as auctioned by Hansons Auctioneers and Valuers (Image 9) 

 

 

                                                             5899154158_740eb39c66_o

 

                                                         Medicine chest, thought to date from the eighteenth century, containing 'Spirit Sal Volatile' (Image 10)

 

 

 This next image, on the other hand, shows a row of ivory sheaths for a selection of smelling bottles intended for private use. Decoration here becomes a costume for the vial itself, obscuring its medical origins. These sheaths clearly indicate the fact that in the popular mind, Eau-de-Luce’s primary value lay in its aesthetically appealing exterior rather than the power of the substance itself, potent though it might be.

 

 

                                                   Ivory sheaths for smelling salts bottles, 18th century

 

                                                                     Ivory sheaths for smelling salt bottles from the eighteenth century (Image 11) 

 

Thirdly we see a bottle currently on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and allegedly dating from the late eighteenth century. The museum itself is unclear as to whether the object was used for smelling salts or perfume, and suggests that it may have been designed for either. Extraordinarily, despite it many medicinal benefits, smelling salts appear to have been treated by members of the aristocracy as a merely fashionable accessory, interchangeable with other scented preparations like perfume. By this point, it is clear that the bottle, not the substance, was foremost in the popular mind and that, however universal its benefits, sal ammoniac had been subsumed into the world of upper class display.

 

 

 

                                                                                 

 

                                                                                Smelling bottle housed in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Image 12) 

 

 

The ornamental role of these bottles is also evident in descriptions we find in literature. In The way to please him: Or the history of Lady Sedley, (written by ‘the author of The Way to Lose Him’ and published in 1773) we are told of one character “looking at the gold eau de luce bottle, which Lady Sedley had given her to smell to, when she was recovering from her fit.” (135) Whether we are meant to believe that this bottle is literally made of gold or merely coloured like it, its function as an object of lavish display is clear.

 

Returning to the advertisement for smelling salts, we should note that the grandiose claims of its author regarding any medicinal properties (the description of which we have previously encountered) are not the first pieces of information we receive. The advert begins by emphasising the fashion-currency of such an object:

 

The curious Smelling-Bottle, called Le Sel Poignant d’Angleterre, held in the highest esteem by all the quality and gentry throughout Europe, who constantly carry it in their Pocket; and is infinitely superior to every other kind of salts hitherto invented. (Dalmahoy 1) 

 

Of particular significance here is this emphasis on the “quality and gentry” of Europe whose advocacy precedes that of any doctor in this particular description.  What is clear therefore is that, despite the widespread discussions of smelling salts in serious medical journals and the real practical usages proposed therein, the smelling bottle itself had adopted a far more class-specific and fashionable status by the end of the eighteenth century. 

 


 

Smelling Salts at the Old Bailey

 

A highly useful resource for researching any object or practice of the eighteenth century is the records of the Old Bailey, now made available online at www.oldbaileyonline.org. A key word search of ‘smelling bottle’ for the years 1700-1800 produces primarily references to theft or larceny trials; the object is often listed amongst various other valuable stolen goods. In view of the previous discussion of smelling salts in relation to class, these burglaries emphasise once again the connection between the smelling bottle itself and the ornate world of the upper classes. It seems to have become primarily an object of value, often divorced from its original medical function and prized by rich man and robber alike for its cost.

 

By examining the records of these trials it becomes possible to place the smelling bottle in the context of similarly valuable (and, therefore, stealable) objects. One Charlotte Brudenell was sentenced to death in 1719 for

 

...feloniously stealing a Silver Salt, 2 Silver Spoons, 2 Silver Tea Spoons, a Strainer, a smelling Bottle, a Silk Gown and Petticoat, Muslin Apron, &c. To the value of 10 l.

(Old Bailey Proceedings Online, Charlotte Brudenell)

 

The bottle, like the silver spoons or silk gown, is here part of the fabric of luxury which made the upper class home worth robbing. Similarly, a man embroiled in a 1733 theft trial described to the court how the promise of trinkets like the smelling bottle might tempt the beggar to the houses of gentlefolk:

 

We went together, to this Gentleman’s Door, and finding the Glass-case unlock’d, Mullying Jack lifted it up, and I took silver Snuff-mull, and the Smelling-bottle out, and Jack the Hatter stood by to watch.

(OBPO, John Mills, John Walker, Daniel George)

 

In one particularly memorable case, the trial of Joseph Derbin on 8th December 1762, a conviction for theft revolved almost entirely around a smelling bottle. In this instance, the actual bottle was in fact missing or broken, but the silver stopper alone  was deemed valuable enough for Derbin to steal it, along with various other goods. In court, the defendant claimed that the stopper belonged to him and even produced the bottle to which he said it belonged. The extraordinary exchange ran as follows (punctuation altered for clarity):

 

            Prisoner: I have got the smelling bottle that that stopper belongs to (producing one)

 

            Q: Was there any bottle to the stopper, when it was taken away?

 

            Prosecutor: No; there was not.

 

His Lordship tried the bottle and stopper together: the hole appeared a great deal too big for the stopper. The bottle return’d to the Prisoner again.

            ...

 

Elizabeth Lewis: I am wife to the prosecutor; all these things produced are my property...I have no doubt but they are mine; the piece of chain and bottle stopper are mine; here is a handkerchief that we found in the prisoner’s drawer is mine

 

...

 

Prisoner’s defence: This is a malicious prosecution...I bought the bottle and stopper, and bit of chain with other goods; they go by the character of trinkets. I have dealt with most of the principal auctioneers in town for such goods...

The Jury desired to see the bottle to try the stopper in it, but the Prisoner refused letting them see it.

(OBPO Joseph Derbin)

 

Part of the reason for the smelling bottle’s crucial role here is the fact that Derbin is obliged to explain away the fact that such an item lies in his possession. He must lie that ‘I have dealt with most of the principal auctioneers in the town for such goods’ to excuse the anachronism of his dealing with the clearly very valuable stopper. The actual salts themselves, the contents of the vial, seem of little significance here, particularly considering the fact that Derbin carries with him an open-topped bottle which, one presumes, is empty. To a great extent then, any medical associations connected to ‘volatile salts’ is second in the eighteenth century mind to the actual physical value of the case in which they are housed. It is this value, not the potency of the salt, which aligns the object with the wealthy. 

 

Yet it is important to note that the Old Bailey records also tell of smelling salts being used by the upper classes for their original, more medicinal purpose. In a 1787 case involving a rape allegation, the spinster Mary Hunt described how, following her ordeal

 

The gentlewoman took me into the parlour, and gave me a smelling bottle to smell to. (OBPO Luston Vaughan)

 

The ‘gentlewoman’ in question is, therefore, fully capable of recalling the bottle’s restorative powers in a time of need. However, in the majority of cases involving loss of consciousness, either from fear or from a wound, any mention of smelling salts is omitted. Instead, particularly in those trials involving less wealthy individuals, the Eau-de-luce in its expensive bottle is substituted for vinegar, alcohol, or even water, to act as a cheap alternative. In one case involving highway robbery for example, “Brandy was called for” (OBPO, John Wright) when a woman felt faint.

 

 An eighteenth century observer seated in the halls of the Old Bailey and observing the various cases would, it seems, have been far more likely to hear mention of the smelling bottle in a case of theft relating to the value of the jar itself, than a case where a prostrate victim was revived by the actual salt. The fact that, in one case, the stopper alone may count as a ‘trinket’, separated entirely from the functional container but still counted a costly commodity, demonstrates aptly how the object was perceived. Smelling salts did indeed come to the aid of those who had fallen from consciousness, such as Mary Hunt describes in her rape case, but even so they seem to have been a preserve of the gentle classes. The rest of the population, it seems, made use of less fashionable, but far cheaper alternatives. 

 


 

 

                                                    

 

                                                                                                               (Image 13)

 

Smelling Salts and Gender

 

Although the gasping reflex stimulated by the volatile salts is no more effective on women than on men, for most eighteenth century minds smelling salts were inextricably associated with the feminine. Even for us today, mention of the substance will most likely conjure scenes in upper class drawing rooms where fainted ladies lie cushioned by a gentleman’s shoulder, or propped by a chair-arm whilst a bottle is wafted under their nose. From the eighteenth century onwards, smelling salts acted a central role in the performance of female delicacy. Once again, the medical function of the bottle is interwoven with, and in many ways inferior to, its role as a fashionable accessory. Whether the fainting was real or, as various modern feminists have written, a cunning ploy to reveal oneself erotically or regain control of a particular situation, the role of smelling salts centred on notions of how the women of the fashionable classes should behave.

 

 We might postulate that the feminine connotations of smelling salts were grounded in the more practical world of midwifery, originating from a genuine need to revive women quickly following a difficult birth. This connection is made evident in Alexander Hamilton’s The family female physician: or, A treatise on the management of female complaints, and of children in early infancy. Hamilton is, in fact, condemning the practice when he writes that, in cases of presumed internal bleeding

 

It is very common for the attendants to endeavour to rouse the patient, by the application of various substances to the nose as smelling salts, hartshorn, spirits &c. But such practices are very improper; for when the patient is in a languid irritable state, any stimulating medicine, rashly snuffed up, might endanger suffocation; or by exciting violent coughing or sneezing, would induce excessive flooding; which, in a few hours, might prove fatal. (229)

 

The fact that this text, written in the 1790s, refers to the ‘common’ use of smelling salts by midwives suggests that throughout the eighteenth century, a bottle of sal volatile was an object kept to hand by women throughout the dangerous process of labour whether or not, as Hamilton queries, this was strictly safe to use. Like forceps, for instance, smelling salts may well have acquired feminine resonance as an object intimately involved with the most female of physical experiences. 

 

But whatever the original medical link between smelling salts and women, the most enduringly popular connection came in the fashion for women to faint, not merely during labour, but at any given moment of alarm. This derived to some degree from the well-worn notion that women were both physically and mentally inferior, particularly those ladies of high breeding who were protected from the more startling realities of life. Yet fainting became an integral part of the feminine ideal at this particular point in history primarily through the depiction of women in the literature of the time. In her essay 'Fainting and Latency in the Eighteenth Century's Romantic Novel of Courtship', Christiane Zschirnt blames the phenomenon on sentimental fiction in particular:

 

     Apparently, fainting in the eighteenth century was a subject of literature rather than of medicine...the image of the delicate, swooning heroine thrived in      the sentimental novels of the second half of the century. (48) 

 

Consequently, any accounts of real-life fainting come under the suspicion of twenty first century historians, including Zschirnt, who argue that women were consciously imitating those fragile ladies of fiction, and that there was therefore always an ulterior motive to such a display. Yet the eighteenth century commentator was by no means unaware of this artificiality, nor the subsequently redundant role of fashionable reviving agents like smelling salts. In a series of fictional letters presented in the book Beautiful extracts, of prosaic writers. Carefully selected for the young and rising generation, the five senses each write of their experiences. When it comes to be the turn of Smell, she describes her irritation at being exploited by women who faint purely to cause a scene:

 

     I am also peculiarly beneficial to swooning ladies(and as there are many of this stamp who faint away merely for the pleasure of being attended to, and having half a      dozen young men buzzing around them); these, let me tell you, are under very considerable obligations to me; it is, moreover, under my immediate protection, that Sel      poignant, Eau de Luce; and an hundred other filthy compositions, are sold for twelve times their value, and ushered into ball-rooms, theatres and all fashionable crowds.      (108) 

 

Clearly the volatile salts are associated not only with women, but with a particular breed of fashionable, attention-seeking female who exploits their supposed medicinal qualities. For Smell, eau-de-luce becomes a 'filthly composition', far from the miracle serum capable of re-animation or even resurrection which doctors had so enthusiastically described. The smelling bottle, then, seems to perform in the eighteenth century as an object which facilitated a particular mode of behaviour from women, behaviours which they had learned from sentimental literature, and had little to do with a genuine medical malady. 

 

So strong was the association between women and the smelling bottle that any reference to a man having used the restorative became tantamount to an accusation of effeminacy. Despite the fact that, as we have seen, the benefits of 'sal poignant' as described in the doctor's manuals applied equally to men and women, the female delicacy with which they became associated came to eclipse their universal medicinal role. In a poem from the 1780s, 'Description of a pretty man', the eponymous fop is denounced through his use of perfumes and smelling salts

 

                    Who scatters fragrance, as he goes, 

                    Of Eau-de-Luce, or Fleur-de-Rose? (62)

 

This man's renunciation of masculinity by adopting these scents makes clear the overwhelmingly female connotations of the smelling bottle. Clearly, this was an object which belonged on the high class woman's dressing table, a part of her performance of gender like the wearing of perfume or cosmetics.  

 

One image, an etching printed in 1784, highlights again this connection between smelling salts and a loss of masculinity, here playing on the familiar themes of the duped husband or lover who is emasculated by being made a cuckold. 

 

 

                        FOR DESCRIPTION SEE GEORGE (BMSat)  Etching

 

                                                                                                            (Image 14)

 

The central figure here is the Whig statesman Charles James Fox, shown reeling after a recent political blow. Behind him is his paramour, the famous beauty Mary Robinson or 'Perdita', who applies the smelling bottle to Fox's nose whilst extending her other arm to be kissed by another of her lovers the Prince of Wales. Once again the smelling bottle plays into a narrative of female deception, here with the cynical twist that Fox himself lies prostrate whilst Perdita continues her affairs (literally) behind his back. What might well have appeared a conventional death-scene image with Fox as the fallen hero is rendered, by the introduction of smelling salts, a portrait of the politician's weakness and a fragility which is almost feminine. 

 

The fact that a smelling bottle signals a loss of masculine prowess becomes yet more pathetic (in the modern sense of the word) when we return to the records of the Old Bailey to consider a case of perverting the course of justice in 1787. During the proceedings one Mr. Crossley's suspicious behaviour is evidenced by his pretending to be ill and producing smelling salts to avoid difficult lines of questioning:

 

     Now, Gentlemen give me leave to call your attention to a circumstance that strikes me to be very material indeed; Mr. Crossley was in Court at that time, he      appeared to be in good health that day; he says he is ill now, and takes out his smelling bottle frequently; but he was sitting in Court when I opened the      plaintiff's cause, and he said he never delivered any bill to Mrs. Brumidgham, for that I have under his own hand, and I will prove his bill. (OBPO William Priddle) 

 

The jury are expected here to take note of Crossley's use of the smelling bottle, and to interpret it as a sign of cunning and performance rather than a genuine ailment. It would seem that, when it comes to the question of gender, smelling salts were not only associated with women and feminine weakness, but were widely accepted as part of a fashionable performance of delicacy whose goal was always to emulate the heroine of the sentimental novel rather than to display true sickness or fear. That deceptions of this kind were ultimately erotic in nature is further emphasised through images like that of Perdita, whose sexual manipulations must revolve around the presence of the bottle. The fact that, when translated into male hands, smelling salts immediately  render their owner effeminate, or signal a deceitful, unmanly cunning such as that of Mr Crossley, demonstrates that for the eighteenth century mind this object was not only heavily gendered, but highly dubious in its influences and associations. We have come a long way from the marvellous and universal medicine described in the doctors' handbooks. 

 


 

Smelling Salts in Fiction

 

As has already been noted, the smelling bottle makes a frequent appearance in the literature of the eighteenth century, particularly sentimental fiction. The sentimental novel is described by the Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms & Theory thus:

 

A form of fiction popular in 18th c. England. It concentrated on the distresses of the virtuous and attempted to show that a sense of honour and moral behaviour were justly rewarded. It also attempted to show that effusive emotion was evidence of kindness and goodness. (809)

 

The association between volatile salts and women has been largely attributed to this genre and it is easy to see how a desire for "effusive emotion" led to heroines who were constantly overcome by the need to faint. In many such texts, the role of the smelling bottle is a straightforward one: we seem intended to take the fragile heroines at face value, to accept their fainting fits as the result of genuine emotion. These women are, at least ostensibly, constructed for the reader as an ideal model of feminine delicacy, and any suggestion of manipulation or performance associated with the fainting fit is carefully avoided by most narrators. The smelling bottle therefore,  is an ‘honest’ actor in such scenes, primarily appearing in its intended medical role. In fact, so frequent and so sincere is feminine recourse to eau-de-luce in sentimental fiction, that the bottle’s presence passes virtually unremarked upon, becoming a necessary but conventional prop. Consider, for example, the following extract from The history of Sir William Harrington, published in 1771, in which the smelling of salts is mentioned merely in parenthesis:

 

Hang these nasty long trains, said she (taking hold of her negligee) mine got under my feet just as I reached the top of the stairs, and had like to have thrown me to the bottom again—I protest (pulling out a bottle of salts and smelling to them) it frightened me sadly. (111)

 

Here, as elsewhere, the narrator asks that the role of the bottle be treated seriously, limiting our response to an acceptance of its role and, by implication, the authenticity of her own reported emotion. Thus the smelling bottle works in tandem with the women in these novels, each authenticating the other’s role to convince a reader that the report they are reading is legitimate.

 

However, it is also certainly true that the behaviour of female characters is influenced by the proximity of smelling salts, throwing doubt on the notion that their fits are entirely spontaneous. In a play by Hannah Brand, one exchange in particular highlights this relationship; the moment revolves around one of the girls having fetched a spider to frighten the other:

 

Flora: Indeed Madamoiselle! I shall faint unless you throw it away.

 

Adelinda: Then I shall be obliged to let it crawl upon your face, till you have done fainting: for I have no sal volatile, nor eau de luce to recover you. So faint, or go, whichsoever you please instantly.(255)

 

Adelinda’s taunt recalls the fact that fainting is only ‘safe’ for the women of fiction when they know that the eau-de-luce is close at hand to revive them. Flora’s inability to react as she would wish implies a far less physiological grounding for the propensity to faint and hints what, as we have discussed before, was a common criticism of such scenes: that the woman was ultimately in control of her behaviour. As critic Boram Kim has written in the article Faint or Feint?: Literary Portrayals of Female Swooning in the Eighteenth Century, fainting “initially designed to restrain the growth of women’s movement and activity [became]... a tool for influence.” (164)

 

Such a caveat regarding female fainting casts a particularly deep shadow of scepticism over scenes in which a heroine is revived by a lover or male admirer. Satirists of sentimental and other such genres often seized on this to argue that female characters and, by extension, the real life women who emulated them, were in fact arch-manipulators. Reading certain passages with this in mind, the fragile innocence of the narrative voice becomes far less convincing and we begin to note how smelling salts are utilized by women to regain control of a situation and prompt a particular desired effect. When a gallant is injured defending the heroine of The advantages of deliberation from an insult she declares:

 

I was indeed ready to faint! I was never so ill. The men, who all condemned Lord Merton’s rashness, ran for drops, &c. &c. Bellville held one of my hands in his, and with the other, an eau de luce bottle to my nose. His tender solicitude, and repeated assurances that he was not much hurt, soon restored me. (192)

 

Well might the critic seize upon such descriptions of a lover’s ‘tender solicitude’. The faint here not only happens at the perfect moment to prevent further bloodshed but manoeuvres the lady to the centre of the action, orbited by concerned young men. The smelling bottle itself brings the heroine into close physical contact with the object of her affections; we might go so far as to argue that it facilitates an erotic display of passive dependency. The pattern of this scene is a common one and is repeated elsewhere as, for example, in The artless lovers, a novel published in 1768:

 

I heard no more; the sudden, the unexpected surprise, the momentous change was too great; my fluttered spirits could not bear the pleasurable shock; I sunk down in my chair, without motion. How long I remained in a motionless, insensible state, I know not: all I know is, that when I returned to the possession of my faculties, I found myself in the arms of Wentworth, who looked as pale as death, and had a terrifying anxiety painted in his countenance, which I had never beheld in it till then; while Lord G—m, with the most concerned aspect, sat on the other side of me with an eau-de-luce bottle. (201)

 

Once again, the smelling bottle facilitates a faint which conveniently brings a woman into contact with her lover. Many a modern critic has argued that such manipulation merely highlights the disempowerment of women, pardoning their exploitation of the limited means by which they could exert their influence. One might even argue that the smelling bottle is fashioned as a proto-feminist object, an item mythologized in fiction as a means by which supposed female weaknesses might in fact permit an element of power. The eighteenth century commentator seems, to some extent, to share this sympathy with a clever woman’s use of the salts. In The Mistress of the Inn, a play translated from Italian in the mid 1700s, one heroine admits explicitly to the audience the fact that women’s faints are mere pretence. In doing so she gets the better of the awkward Squire and allows him not only to play the hero when he runs to fetch the restorative, but to admire her beauty and even speak to her without his customary shyness:

 

Squire: Mirandolina! Oh, dear” Oh my! She’s fainted. Could she be in love/with me? So soon? Any why not? Aren’t I in love with her? Dear Mirandolina! Imagine me saying “dear” to a woman” She fainted for me! [He kneels beside her.] Oh, how beautiful you are. If only I could bring her around. [He’s on his feet again.] But how? I’m not used to being around women. I don’t have any smelling salts or whatever.

...

 

Mirandolina: Well, he’s done for. We women have our ways, but when a man is really obstinate, the coup de grace is always a good faint. (George Hill 158)

 

The feminine guile associated with real life use of smelling salts thus finds its origins even in the literature that depicted delicate heroines and supposedly genuine faints. From its advent, the feminine performance of the swoon interwove the virtuous expression of real emotion with a cogent manipulation of men.  Yet in fiction, the smelling bottle's role is by no means entirely denounced, nor are the women condemned entirely for their use of it. Such agency, it seems, might be permitted in good humour when a clever or virtuous lady made the bottle a prop to help bring about her own happy ending, particularly when forced to do so by ineffective male counterparts, as was often the case in comedy. Nevertheless, we find that the role of the smelling bottle is once again distanced from its original medical purpose and associated rather with manipulation and performance. Smelling salts became in fiction, as they would do in reality, a crucial acting object in the feminine facade. 

 


 

 

                                  

 

                                                                                      1742 edition of Pamela (Image 15)

 

Smelling Salts in Pamela

 

Continuing our discussion of the role which smelling salts play in literature, we might now look briefly at one of the best-selling novels of the century Pamela: or Virtue Rewarded. This crucial text in any discussion of sentimental fiction or the construction of a feminine ideal presents a heroine whose instinct is to faint demurely at any suggestion of indecency or sexual violence. According to Pamela's own report, these moments are entirely genuine; her fainting the result of real emotion and a virtuous abnegation of consciousness when reality becomes too lewd to bear. The smelling bottle, once again, acts a pivotal role in these scenes. Towards the beginning of the novel, Pamela flees from her master in horror after he tries to grope her and faints repeatedly at the thought of encountering him again:

     

     I was two hours before I cam to myself; and just as I got a little upon my feet, he coming in, I fainted away again with the terror; and so he withdrew...Mrs. Jervis gave me her smelling bottle, and had cut my laces, and set me in a great chair (21)

 

Heartfelt as these passages initially appear to be, we must be wary of concluding that Pamela is fainting from spontaneous emotion or that she lacks awareness of the effect such behaviour will have. The swoon, after all, has the convenient and immediate effect of frightening Mr.B away, reminiscent of the ladies of various other texts we have examined who use the same trick for opposite effect, ending up physically closer to the men that they desire. Knowing that Mrs Jervis possesses a bottle of smelling salts, Pamela seems partly in control of her behaviour. Such, at least, was the accusation often made by anti-Pamelists, that is, eighteenth century writers like Henry Fielding who questioned the heroine's innocence. Indeed, in his parody Shamela, Fielding actively explored the possibility that Pamela fainting was part of her larger deception. 

 

Richardson's own novel does little to rebuff such claims. Significantly, in her later period of confinement, Pamela faints in an almost direct response to Mrs. Jewkes' mocking suggestion that there is nothing truly the matter with her:

 

     '...She is now, you see, quite well again!' This I heard; more she might say; but I fainted away once more, at those words, and at his clasping his arms about me again. When I cam a little to myself, I saw him sit there, and the maid Nan, holding a smelling-bottle to my nose, and no Mrs. Jewkes.

 

In such a scene, Pamela's ability to faint when she wishes and be revive with all dangers having been removed from her, and all detractors absent or contrite, depends upon the smelling bottle. Once again, this practical object exists in the eighteenth century mind as far more than a medical restorative, but is laboured with gendered associations and a crucial part of the performance of femininty. Whether or not the fainting is genuine, as is thrown into doubt even in the most sentimental of novels such as Pamela, the bottle's presence is a crucial trope in such fashionably feminine scenes. 

 

 

                                         

 

                                                                        Pamela faints at the advances of Mr B (Image 16)

 


 

Making Smelling Salts

 

The following video describes a modern means of creating smelling salts. This recipe uses lemon as a stimulant and lavender as a soothing agent rather than some of the more aggressive and potentially dangerous ingredients which were used in the eighteenth century. In the advert we looked at for smelling salts, produced by Alexander Dalmahoy, we are in fact told that this concoction is "far more fragrant and refreshing" than lavender and other such oils. However, despite variations in ingredients, the double function of smelling salts as both stimulant and perfume continues in contemporary aromatherapy. 

 

                                                                  

                                                                                                                                                  (Video 1)

 


 

Annotated Bibliography: 

 

Académie royale des sciences (France). Cases, medical, chirurgical, and anatomical, with observations. Selected and translated into English from the history and memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris; from the year 1666 to the present time. By Loftus Wood, M.D. Vol. I. Vol. Volume 1. London, M.DCC.LXXVI. [1776]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. University of Warwick Library. 19 Feb. 2014 <http://find.galegroup.com/ecco/infomark.do?     &source=gale&prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=warwick&tabID=T001&docId=CW109013291&type=multipage&contentSet=ECCOArticles&version=1.0&docLevel=FASCIMILE>.

(Primary source: A medical manual containing a description of the use of smelling salts to rescue someone from a viper bite. This is a good example of one of the more potent usages for sal ammoniac, applicable to both men and women, which demonstrates the eighteenth century belief that smelling salts really did have restorative powers and that they might work in a variety of emergency situations. No quote is included here, only a reference to the book's contents: it is mentioned as a fairly authoritative account of this commonly accepted cure.)

 

The advantages of deliberation; or, the folly of indiscretion. In two volumes. ... Vol. Volume 1. London,  MDCCLXXII. [1772]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. University of Warwick Library. 1 Mar. 2014 
<http://find.galegroup.com/ecco/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=warwick&tabID=T001&docId=CW124700698&type=multipage&contentSet=ECCOArticles&version=1.0&docLevel=FASCIMILE>.

(Primary source: a novel which demonstrates many of the tropes of sentimental fiction, including the role of smelling salts. Whether the author intends to or not, smelling salts are portrayed in a somewhat ambivalent light, the heroine in question conveniently collapses into her lover's arms in order that he might apply the restorative to her nose. Such sources are a useful insight into the role that the smelling bottle acted in literature and the nuances of its performance that led to later condemnation and satire.)

 

The artless lovers. A novel. In a series of letters from Miss Lucy Wheatly in town, to Miss Annabell Grierson in the country. In two volumes. ... Vol. Volume 2. London,  M.DCC.LXVIII. [1768]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. University of Warwick Library. 1 Mar. 2014 
<http://find.galegroup.com/ecco/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=warwick&tabID=T001&docId=CW114862260&type=multipage&contentSet=ECCOArticles&version=1.0&docLevel=FASCIMILE>.

(Primary source: A particularly striking example of the sort of sentimental use of smelling salts which might be easily criticised by moralist or satirist alike. A similar scene to that described in The advantages of deliberation yet lingering even more explicitly on the pleasure the lady feels at being tended by the object of her affection. The scene demonstrates the bodily closeness facilitated by the smelling bottle and, thus, its role in the erotic performance of the supposedly innocent ladies of fiction.) 

 

Author of The way to lose him. The way to please him: Or The history of Lady Sedley: by the author of The way to lose him. In two volumes. Vol. Volume 1. London,  MDCCLXXIII. [1773]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. University of Warwick Library. 25 Feb. 2014 <http://find.galegroup.com/ecco/infomark.do?     &source=gale&prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=warwick&tabID=T001&docId=CB128547005&type=multipage&contentSet=ECCOArticles&version=1.0&docLevel=FASCIMILE>.

(Primary source: An tale set in the upper class world which demonstrates, in a fleeting description, the connection between the smelling bottle and class. The bottle is described as being 'gold' but its presence and expense escape any further comment, implying that it needs no explanation. Thus, this particular source allows us to note not only the richness of this item, but the unquestioned position it took amongst the grandeur and high emotions of the aristocracy." 

 

Beautiful extracts, of prosaic writers. Carefully selected for the young and rising generation. Containing Pieges, Moral and Entertaining, Classical and Historical, Orations, Characters, Narratives, Dialogues, &c. &c. ... . Embellished with superb engravings. Vol. Volume 3. London,  1795 [1796]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. University of Warwick Library. 28 Feb. 2014 
<http://find.galegroup.com/ecco/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=warwick&tabID=T001&docId=CW114993363&type=multipage&contentSet=ECCOArticles&version=1.0&docLevel=FASCIMILE>.
 

(Primary source: A particularly useful source in which the five senses are personified and Smell, writing her letter to the reader, decries the abuses it suffers at the hands of ladies who apply smelling salts only to draw attention to themselves. The text clearly demonstrates the ubiquity of scepticism regarding real-life use of smelling salts and a popular sense that women who imitated the ladies of novels were in reality arch manipulators. The text's audience 'the young and rising generation' implies an attempt on behalf of the author to dissuade young women from following this pattern of behaviour. By the late eighteenth century then, the reputation of smelling salts had somewhat suffered.) 

 

Brand, Hannah. Plays, and poems; by Miss Hannah Brand. Norwich,  1798. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. University of Warwick Library. 1 Mar. 2014 
<http://find.galegroup.com/ecco/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=warwick&tabID=T001&docId=CW113176700&type=multipage&contentSet=ECCOArticles&version=1.0&docLevel=FASCIMILE>.

(Primary source: In an extract from one particular play, Brand shows a keen awareness of the role that the smelling bottle played in allowing women the performance of elegant frailty. Her depiction of a scene in which one woman teases another that she can't faint because they don't have the smelling salts to hand, emphasises how selective this behaviour it was, how much it was an act of relinquishment that required not on purely physiological conditions, but on the availability of necessary props.) 

 

Cox, Daniel, chemist. Family medical compendium; or directions for medicine chests: with remarks on medicine & surgery, by D. Cox, (chemist to his Majesty,) Royal elaboratory, glocester. A new edition. Glocester,  [1790?]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. University of Warwick Library. 18 Feb. 2014 <http://find.galegroup.com/ecco/infomark.do&source=gale&prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=warwick&tabID=T001&docId=CW108600840&type=multipage&contentSet=ECCOArticles&version=1.0&docLevel=FASCIMILE>.(Primary source: A good example of a medical guide, intended for family use, which advocates the use of smelling salts. The reference is fairly brief and does not describe the merits of the salt in depth, but provides a typical source of recommendation from which the eighteenth century individual might draw their ideas about the substance.) 

 

Chamberlaine, William. The West-India seaman’s medical directory. London, 1785. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. University of Warwick Library. Web 18 Feb 2014. <http://find.galegroup.com/ecco/infomark.do&source=gale&prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=warwick&tabID=T001&docId=CW108466687&type=multipage&contentSet=ECCOArticles&version=1.0&docLevel=FASCIMILE>.>(Primary source: Like Daniel Cox's Family medical compendium, this test gives a fairly common description of smelling salts and their medicinal properties. This one expands slightly on what is written by Cox, including asthma as one of the maladies for which sal ammoniac might bring relief. Again, this book provides what would have been considered a reliable endorsement and is useful in judging what the doctors themselves thought of smelling salts.) 

 

Dalmahoy, Alexander. The curious smelling-bottle, called Le sel poignant d'Angleterre, ... [London?],[1785?]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. University of Warwick Library. 19 Feb. 2014<http://find.galegroup.com/ecco/infomark.do&source=gale&prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=warwick&tabID=T001&docId=CW116202295&type=multipage&contentSet=ECCOArticles&version=1.0&docLevel=FASCIMILE>.

(Primary source: An advert for smelling salts which gives a highly useful insight into the way in which the substance was perceived. At times according with the medical manuals and at times resorting to exaggeration, this advert lists all the supposed benefits of sel poignant d'Angleterre but also, crucially, assures the reader that the bottle is preferred by the fashionable elite. Smelling salts' role as an accessory to the upper classes is made clear and is clearly as central a selling point as the actual medical function.) 

 

Dictionary of Literary Terms and Theory. Ed J.A. Cuddon. Penguin Books: London, 1999. 

(Secondary source: This seminal dictionary gives an intelligent and useful definition of the term 'sentimental literature', describing in particular the sentimental novels of the eighteenth century. This helps clarify the term to make the subsequent discussion of this genre in relation to smelling salts more comprehensible.) 

 

Dugan, Holly. The Ephemeral History of Perfume: Scent and Sense in Early Modern England. The John Hopkins University Press: United States of America, 2011. 

(Secondary source: A useful academic study of perfume which includes an in depth discussion of pomanders, one of the precursors of smelling salts. The book also discusses the erotic and spiritual role that smell played in the early modern mind, but it is the medical beliefs surrounding sal ammoniac which endured into the eighteenth century and thus, the book focusses mainly on the medieval/renaissance era and discusses only several major aspects of what is a complicated and multi-faceted subject.) 

 

Ettrick, William. The blunders of loyalty, and other miscellaneous poems; being a selection of certain ancient poems, Partly ON Subjects Of Local History. Together with the original notes and illustrations, &c. The poems modernized by Ferdinando Fungus, gent. London,  M,DCC,XC. [1790]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. University of Warwick Library. 27 Feb. 2014 
<http://find.galegroup.com/ecco/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=warwick&tabID=T001&docId=CW115363012&type=multipage&contentSet=ECCOArticles&version=1.0&docLevel=FASCIMILE>.

(Primary source: This eighteenth century poet includes in his collection a poem referencing eau de luce and rouge, calling both the accoutrements of townspeople, the fashionable elite. This is a perfect example of the popular attitude towards smelling salts, an illustration of the fact that their role changed from being a medically significant serum to an accessory of those with money to spare on an expensive bottle. Such a poem would most likely have been enjoyed by the very elite who participated in the trend, it seems a self-knowing, self-critique of the affectations of the fashionable classes.) 

 

Fisher, Joseph. The practice of medicine made easy. Being a short, but comprehensive treatise, necessary for every family London,  1785. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. University of Warwick Library. 18 Feb. 2014 <http://find.galegroup.com/ecco/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=warwick&tabID=T001&docId=CB129499532&type=multipage&contentSet=ECCOArticles&version=1.0&docLevel=FASCIMILE>.(Primary source: Another useful medical source for the eighteenth century attitudes surrounding sal ammoniac. Such a book would have been brought into the home and read, perhaps even discussed, by members of the gentile classes. It is from here that popular notions concerning the marvels of various medicines would spring.)

 

Gentleman of the University of Cambridge. Excursions to Parnassus, or the entertainment of a summer's vacation. By a Gentleman of the University of Cambridge. London,  [1787]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. University of Warwick Library. 28 Feb. 2014 
<http://find.galegroup.com/ecco/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=warwick&tabID=T001&docId=CW110267967&type=multipage&contentSet=ECCOArticles&version=1.0&docLevel=FASCIMILE>.

(Primary source: Included here is an eighteenth century satire on the dress and manners of the fop. Crucially, one of his effeminate attributes is his possession of ea de luce. Not only does this once again emphasise the alignment between smelling salts and feminine fragility, but indicates that such a connection would have been readily accepted by the intended readers of this publication. It is sources like this which allow us to confidently assert the ubiquity of this perception of smelling salts and that fact that, despite the medical journals, sal ammoniac had acquired another life altogether in the eighteenth century as a fashionable ornament denoting female delicacy.) 

 

Gordon, Geo. Alex. (George Alexander). The complete English physician; or, an universal library of family medicines. Containing a new and approved selection of efficacious prescriptions and remedies,London,  MDCCLXXIX. [1779]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. University of Warwick Library. 19 Feb. 2014 <http://find.galegroup.com/ecco/infomark.do?     &source=gale&prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=warwick&tabID=T001&docId=CW107069047&type=multipage&contentSet=ECCOArticles&version=1.0&docLevel=FASCIMILE>.

(Primary source: Another useful eighteenth century reference to the restorative qualities of smelling salts and its perceived ability to resurrect the dead. Here, it is thought that sal ammoniac might save a stillborn child. Once again, we find that ideas surrounding the life force and the nature of the human spirit are shrouded in mystery, so much so that it is genuinely believed, in serious medical guides like this, that smelling salts might reawaken the recently deceased.) 

 

Hamilton, Alexander. The family female physician: or, A treatise on the management of female complaints, and of children in early infancy. By Alexander Hamilton, M.D. Professor of midwifery in the university, and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and of the Royal Society, of Edinburgh, &c. First Worcester edition. Printed at Worcester, Massachusetts,  MDCCXCIII. [1793]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. University of Warwick Library. 27 Feb. 2014 
<http://find.galegroup.com/ecco/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=warwick&tabID=T001&docId=CB131053246&type=multipage&contentSet=ECCOArticles&version=1.0&docLevel=FASCIMILE>.

(Primary source: This book is proof that eighteenth century attitudes towards smelling salts were rooted in an association with women. Hamilton speaks of the common practice of applying the smelling bottle to the noses of those who had fainted during or after labour. Although Hamilton argues against this practice, his mention of it and that fact that he feels it needs addressing proves that, to his mind at least, the smelling bottle was closely involved with childbirth. This thus identifies a specifically female complaint which, 'commonly' remedied with the restorative, perhaps, explains the origins of the connection between female delicacy and eau de luce.)

 

The history of Sir William Harrington. Written some years since, and revised and corrected by the late Mr. Richardson, Author of Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, &c. Now first published, in four volumes. ... Vol. Volume 1. London,  MDCCLXXI. [1771]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. University of Warwick Library. 1 Mar. 2014 
<http://find.galegroup.com/ecco/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=warwick&tabID=T001&docId=CW102605253&type=multipage&contentSet=ECCOArticles&version=1.0&docLevel=FASCIMILE>.

(Primary source: This text serves as a fairly common example of the less complicated role that smelling salts played. Here, the author doesn't linger on the fact that the bottle is produced when a woman feels faint, and we are not explicitly led to doubt the genuine nature of her troubled state, nor to question her motives for behaving thus. This forms a stark contrast with more self-aware novels which, whilst presenting an innocent heroine, also hint at a manipulating knowledge of what she is doing.) 

 

Johnson, Alexander. Relief from accidental death: or, summary instructions for the general institution, proposed in the year 1773, by Alexander Johnson London,  [1785]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. University of Warwick Library. 19 Feb. 2014 <http://find.galegroup.com/ecco/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=warwick&tabID=T001&docId=CW109058059&type=multipage&contentSet=ECCOArticles&version=1.0&docLevel=FASCIMILE>.

(Primary source: A medical journal which credits smelling salts with the ability to resurrect those recently drowned or somehow accidentally killed. This book demonstrates the mysteries still persisting in medical science regarding what the life force was and how it was attached to the body. Smelling salts seem capable here of literally drawing back the soul from its escape, of reanimating a corpse. This plays into the prevalent eighteenth century notions of the power of this restorative and demonstrates the extent to which the impact of its potency was thought to reach.) 

 

Kim, Boram. "Faint or Feint?: Literary Portrayals of Female Swooning in the Eighteenth Century." Web. 1 March 2014. <http://s-space.snu.ac.kr/bitstream/10371/2391/3/englishstudies_v29_148.pdf>

(Secondary source: This essay takes a more celebratory stance on the suggestion that women in the eighteenth century used the smelling bottle only to perform fashionable delicacy. This manipulation, Kim argues, was necessary for the high class woman who had little means of gaining control in a social situation, much less erotic control over their own bodies. This line of argument has been taken enthusiastically by various modern feminist writers and is a useful interpretation of the role of the smelling bottle in the eighteenth century.) 

 

McCrory, P. “Warm up: Smelling salts.” British Journal of Sports Medicine. 40. 8. 659-660. n.p. 2006.Web. 3 Feb 2014. http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/40/8/659.full

(Secondary source: A website article written as part of the British Journal of Sports Medicine which explores the use of smelling salts in the treatment of head injures in sports people. The article begins with a useful history of smelling salts, including references to classical and medieval practice which are referenced in my introduction. A succinct but intelligent summary of the salt in question and its function.)

 

OED Online. December 2013. Oxford University Press. n.d. Web. 6 February 2014 <http://0-www.oed.com.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/view/Entry/143675>.

(Secondary source: The Oxford English Dictionary provides an in depth and accurate definition of various terms relating to smelling salts, including reference to rare synonyms which were occasionally in use in the eighteenth century.) 

 

Old Bailey Proceedings Online(www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 6.0, 17 April 2011) September, 1719, trial of Charlotte Brudenell (t17190903-25)

(Primary source: A fascinating case of theft in which the value of the smelling salts is made clear by their juxtaposition with other listed valuables which Brundell stole. All of the Old Bailey records come directly from the contemporary source and are thus an invaluable resource for any research into this period, including that of smelling salts. Since they are largely transcripts of real life trials these records give a useful insight into what people really said and thought, making any comments about or references to the smelling bottle hugely significant.) 

 

Old Bailey Proceedings Online(www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 6.0, 17 April 2011) September, 1733, trial of John Mills, John Walker, Daniel George. (t17330912-27)

(Primary source: Another thwarted robbery as recorded from real events in the records of the Old Bailey. Here, the immense value of the smelling bottle is evidenced from the risk the culprits are willing to take to steal one, amongst several similar items. Both this case and that of Charlotte Brundell provide us with clear data regarding the relationship between smelling bottles and the rich, this relationship drawing, as it did, the attention of these thieves.) 

 

Old Bailey Proceedings Online(www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 6.0, 17 April 2011)

August, 1724, the trial of John Wright (t17240812-48)

(Primary source: A fleeting but significant reference to brandy being called for in a case of fainting. In the criminal courts, this real life incident amongst less affluent people who don't have access to the expensive bottles of sal ammoniac demonstrates that for the ordinary member of society, this object was far from the vital medical restorative described by doctors. It might be easily substituted for even so common a substance as brandy.) 

 

Old Bailey Proceedings Online(www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 6.0, 17 April 2011) December,

1762, trial of Joseph Derbin (t17621208-5)

(Primary source: This particular record of a trial from the Old Bailey is of huge significance to a study of smelling salts in the eighteenth century. Here, the smelling bottle and its stopper are central witnesses in yet another case of theft, the expensive stopper having been stolen by the defendant who claims that it belongs to him. It is worth quoting this trial in particular length since it demonstrates how far the smelling bottle could become distanced from its practical medical role, and how it could perform instead as an object of fashion and wealth in both the upper class home and the criminal courts.) 

 

Old Bailey Proceedings Online(www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 6.0, 17 April 2011) September, 1787, the trial of Luston Vaughan. (t17870912-32)

(Primary source: A notable trial for its reference to a real life incident wherein smelling salts were used to revive a fainted woman. Here the woman, having suffered a rape, is brought to again by a gentlewoman and her eau de luce. It is significant that the witness chooses to remember the nobility of this woman since it indicates the familiar trope of smelling bottle as accessory, but here the original medical function is also remembered. The bottle performs a double role even in genuine emergency situations.) 

 

Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 6.0, 17 April 2011) April 1787, the trial of William Priddle, Robert Holloway, Stephen Stephens. (t17870418-118)

(Primary source: As part of the discussion surrounding smelling salts and feminine deception, this case is an interesting real life incident in which the performance of smelling the bottle and feigning sickness is, in fact, taken up by a man. The implication in the recorded comments of the prosecutor to the jury, is that they are to interpret this behaviour as a demonstration of deception. This is crucial in indicating how an eighteenth century public readily accepted the association not just between smelling salts and effeminacy, but between smelling salts and false performance. This moment in court is, in microcosm, an illustration of the role that smelling salts played more widely in popular fiction.)

 

Our Dramatic Heritage, Volume 3: The Eighteenth Century. Ed. Philip George Hill. Associated University Press: London, 1987. 

(Primary source: An extract from one play, The Mistress of the Inn, translated from Italian, provides a fascinating admission of one female character that smelling salts are, indeed, a mere vehicle for female manipulation. Her pretended faint allows her to bring her suitor close and allow him to transcend the bounds of his usual shyness. One might easily interpret such a source through the perspective of many modern critics: the heroine's virtue is not necessarily diminished by this deception rather, smelling salts are accepted, if at times mistrusted in the eighteenth century, as a means by which a clever woman might regain control and bring about her good fortunes.) 

 

"Perfume Bottles: 17th Century to Modern." wysinfo.com. Web 28 Feb 2014. <http://www.wysinfo.com/Perfume/Perfume_bottles_3.htm>

(Secondary source: An insightful web article from an author with an interest in perfumes. Of particular interest here was the discussion of vinaigrettes as a precursor of smelling salts, and of the change in fashion from the solid perfumes of the pomander to the liquid perfumes of vinegar and sal ammoniac. Unfortunately this article has no detailed citation information and its reliability is somewhat compromised by the lack of external references. Nevertheless, the general claims made by the article are supported by various other sources and the description here is clear and succinct.) 

 

"pomander". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 28 Feb. 2014
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/469294/pomander>.

(Secondary source: A highly useful resource when seeking clear, accurate information concerning a particular object or practice. The section on 'pomander' links to various similar objects including the smelling bottle, and provides a straightforward historical background crucial to an understanding of the role these perfumes played.) 

 

Richards, Sarah. Eighteenth-century ceramics: Products for a civilised society. Manchester University Press: Manchester, 1999. 

(Secondary source: Richards helpfully includes references to Swift and Smolett, both of whom mocked the fashion for smelling salts by arguing that stale urine might serve the same purpose. Although Richards fails to analyse the role of smelling salts further, she is useful in introducing the role that satire plays in the public attitude towards the salt.) 

 

Richardson, Samuel. Pamela. London, 1813. Web 3 Mar 2014. <http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jTE3AAAAIAAJ&dq=pamela&pg=PA5#v=onepage&q=smelling&f=false>

(Primary source: Samuel Richardson's best selling novel Pamela, a hugely important source for any investigation of the accessories of sentimental fiction including smelling salts. Here we once again find that the role of the bottle is ambiguous: on the one hand, it is a genuine medical remedy for Pamela's terrified faints, but on the other, it once again implies that smelling salts are part of a narrative of female deception. Pamela, like many other women in fiction, seems to orchestrate her fainting with the knowledge that she might be readily revived and thus, regains control, even erotic control, of various situations.) 

 

Bardhan-Quallen, Sudipta. The Real Monsters. Sterling Publishing: New York, 2008. 

(Secondary source: Bardhan-Quallen only mentions smelling salts in passing in her discussion of Mary Shelley's inspiration for Frankenstein. Yet the story of Percy Shelley's first wife having drowned, including the attempts to save her using smelling salts, once again emphasise the fact that smelling salts were still regarded, by the early nineteenth century, as a highly potent preparation, capable of overcoming death.) 

 

The European magazine, and London review; containing the literature, history, politics, arts, manners and amusements of the age. By the Philological Society of London. Vol. Volume 44. London [England],[1782]-1826. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. University of Warwick Library. 19 Feb. 2014 <http://find.galegroup.com/ecco/infomark.do&source=gale&prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=warwick&tabID=T001&docId=CB130969337&type=multipage&contentSet=ECCOArticles&version=1.0&docLevel=FASCIMILE>.

(Primary source: An apparently truthful account of a man accidentally swallowing a bottle of eau de luce instead of his medicine. Whether or not this story is true, the fiery effect of the substance on the man in question implies that, to the eighteenth century mind, smelling salts were a highly potent ingredient and might have colossal adverse effects if misused. Such stories would have contributed towards the mythology surrounding sal ammoniac's qualities. 

 

Zschirnt, Christiane. "Fainting and Latency in the Eighteenth Century's Romantic Novel of Courtship." The Germanic Review: Literature, Culture, Theory. 74:1, 48-66. DOI: 10.1080/00168899909597388 <

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00168899909597388>

(Secondary source: An incredibly informative essay discussing the role of the smelling bottle in relation to women's agency and raising questions as to whether women really were weak or whether both the fictional and the real life woman manipulated situations through faints, using the smelling bottle as a prop for their performances. This expresses similar sentiments to many modern critics but is particularly useful in addressing the role of fainting in the eighteenth century; many critics prefer to discuss the Victorian era. Zschirnt allows instead for the development and perpetuation of the fainting woman motif in the 1700s too.)  

 

Images Used

 

1. 2012. Photograph. dittybox.blogspot.co.uk. Web. 25 Feb 2014. <http://dittybox.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/delicate-disposition.html>

 

2. Poitras, Matt. Pomander. N.d. Photograph. kaufmann-mercantile.com. Web 28 Feb 2014. <http://kaufmann-mercantile.com/solid-perfume/>

 

3. Barthel Bruyn the Elder. Portrait of a woman holding a pomander on a beaded cord. 1547. Photograph. langantiques.com. Web 28 Feb 2014. <http://www.langantiques.com/university/index.php/Pomander>

 

4. Barthel Bruyn the Elder. Diptych with portraits of the Pilgrum couple (left side: Gerhard Pilgrum) detail. 1528. Photograph. wikipedia.com. Web 28 Feb 2014. <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rosary_with_pomander.jpg>

 

5. Jacob Cornelisz Van Oostsanen. Portrait of Jan Gerritz. N.d. Photograph. 1st-art-gallery.com. Web 28 Feb 2014. <http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/Jacob-Cornelisz-Van-Oostsanen/Portrait-Of-Jan-Gerritz.-Van-Egmond-Van-De-Dijenborgh,-Bust-Length-Wearing-A-Black-Fur-Trimmed-Coat,-Holding-A-Pomander,-Seen-Within-An-Arched-Decorated-Embrasure,-A-Landscape-Beyond.html>

 

6. 18th C. French vinaigrette bottle. N.d. Photograph. janeaustensworld.wordpress.com. Web 28 Feb 2014. <https://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/category/18th-century-france/>

 

7. 18th century French ladies carrying canes. N.d. Photograph. janeaustensworld.wordpress.com. Web 28 Feb 2014. <https://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/category/18th-century-france/>

 

8. Gericault, Theodore. The Storm, or The Shipwreck. N.d. Musee des Beaux-Arts, Rouen, France. wikipaintings.org. Web 28 Feb 2014. <http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/theodore-gericault/the-storm-or-the-shipwreck> 

 

9. Remarkable medicine chest. 2012. Photograph. hansonsauctioneers.co.uk. Web. 25 Feb 2014. <http://www.hansonsauctioneers.co.uk/pages/news-details.php?id=111>

 

10. Davis, Kevan. Turkey Rhubarb. 2011. Photograph. flickr.com. Web. 25 Feb 2014. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/35468151759@N01/5899154158/in/photolist-9ZhH1s> 

 

11. Ivory sheaths for smelling salts bottles, 18th century. N.d. Musee des Beaux-Arts, Dieppe, France. bridgemanart.com. Web. 25 Feb 2014. <http://www.bridgemanart.com/en-GB/asset/51282>

 

12. N.d. Photograph. Victoria and Albert Museum. collinsnoname.wordpress.com. Web 25 Feb 2014. <http://collinsnoname.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/week-24-oh-the-horror-dunwich-edition/> 

 

13. Fainting Lady. N.d. Photograph. janeaustensworld.wordpress.com. Web. 28 Feb 2014. <https://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/tag/fainting-couches/>

 

14. General Blackbeard wounded at the Battle of Leadenhall. 1784. British Museum, London. britishmuseum.org. Web. 28 Feb 2014. <http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1457861&partId=1> 

 

15. Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded (1740). 2013. Photograph. teainateacup.wordpress.com. Web 1 Mar 2014. <http://teainateacup.wordpress.com/2013/08/12/pamela-or-virtue-rewarded/>

 

16. Pamela swooning after having discovered Mr B in the closet... 2013. Photograph. teainateacup.wordpress.com. Web 1 Mar 2014. <http://teainateacup.wordpress.com/2013/08/12/pamela-or-virtue-rewarded/>

 

 

Videos Used

 

1. Lucas, Susan. "How to make Aromatherapy Smelling Salts." Online video clip. Youtube. Youtube, 14 Nov. 2012. Web. 27 Feb 2012. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XEnx7ROAp-g>

 

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