“Sometime between the 1770s and the 1830s, many respectable French people changed their approach to smell. They decided that some things that used to be regarded as neutral or even pleasant, like human urine, smelled disgusting. (Many Europeans had brushed their teeth with urine just a century before.) Increasingly, these people began to rely less on their sense of smell, regarding it mainly as a source of disgust (though they did use increasing amounts of perfume, the goal was more to mask the smell than to appeal to it). Reliance on vision increased. This change, which spread widely in the Western world though perhaps a bit less decisively (the French are still rated unusually high in their esteem for light and vision), had all sorts of consequences, even aside from the perfume business. When they could afford it, many people moved away from the smellier parts of cities; changes in the balance of the senses played a role in suburbanization. Interest in more frequent bathing increased, which gradually led to alterations in home construction to allow for running water. We still live with many of these consequences—including a reduced capacity to use our sense of smell, compared to our ancestors…”

Stearns, Peter N.. "Introduction: The History of Daily Life: Whys and Hows" Daily Life Online. Greenwood Publishing Group. <http://dailylife.greenwood.com/dle.aspx?k=3&x=GR3233&bc=DBDL1311&p=GR3233-20>.