I’m aware that odors are gaseous chemical compounds that our olfactory receptors can distinguish. But are particularly vile scents potentially detrimental to your health?
Some compounds like CO are odorless, yet fatal. So what is our body really telling us when we smell something revolting and is it reliable?
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Closely tied to this is [Miasma Theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miasma_theory) which was the idea that diseases were called by “bad air” (“night air”), basically bad-smelling air (some people went with connected ideas, like the idea that inhaling food odors could make you gain weight).
Miasma theory is why plague doctor masks look the way they do–there were pleasant smelling herbs and the like stuck in the nose-pieces to protect the wearers from the miasma. (They did function in a similar fashion to modern facemasks, so they *did* provide some protection, just not for the reason they believed at the time.)
Miasma theory was also a big impetus for cleaning sewage out of the rivers in cities–again, this *did* help with public health, even if the reasoning wasn’t quite right.
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