In Europe alone 30 million people suffer from rare diseases; nearly half of these are undiagnosed. Medical Mysteries: The Woman Who Smells of Fish, Channel 5 2016
We meet a boy whose behaviour was terrifyingly transformed overnight. Plus a woman giving off an unpleasant odour. And an athlete whose love of exercise is endangering her life. ibid.
Cameron: a cocktail of drugs is masking the symptoms of a mysterious illness which has transformed him. ibid.
The smell isn’t typical stale sweat … ‘Fish that has been left out in the warm.’ ibid.
Swimming induced pulmonary oedema is a potentially fatal condition. ibid.
Joy Milne can smell things that other people can’t … Parkinson’s had an odour and Joy could smell it. Incredible Medicine: Dr Weston’s Casebook III, BBC 2017
1858 was the year of the Great Stink. A smell of old Father Thames was so bad that MPs moved parliament out of London. For centuries, untreated human waste was pumped directly into the Thames … Bazalgette built 1,100 miles of sewers. The River Thames: Then & Now, Channel 5 2020
I can smell the way the wind’s blowing. House of Cards US s1e1: Chapter, Netflix 2013
What’s that smell? Did you guys go to a Sushi bar? The Sopranos s1e9: Boca, Tony at golf to Junior et al, BBC 1999
The monks attempted to force William’s corpse into the space. According to Audrick his swollen belly burst and an intolerable stench filled the noses of the crowd. Robert Bartlett, The Normans II 2010
Have you ever noticed that every building owned by the [Mormon] Church smells the same? The ‘mormon smell’ is found in every ward building, stake center, temple, visitors center, conference center, the Tabernacle, the MTC, BYU, Deseret Book, the DI, and even City Creek. I’ve noticed the homes of ultra-TBMs even start to smell this way. What is it?
Is it the white-painted cinderblock? Is it the scent of baby spit-up and crushed Cheerios ground into the cheap carpet? Is it the chemicals that untrained TBMs use to clean the building each week? Is it the smell of old men who forgot to wash their white shirts on Saturday? Is it the pile of dirty diapers filling the trash cans? Where the hell does the mormon smell come from? hanger18, board post 26th November 2013
There’s nothing like the smell of Spring. Scarlett Street 1945 starring Edward G Robinson & Joan Bennett & Dan Duryea & Margaret Lindsay & Jess Barker & Rosalind Ivan & Arthur Loft & Charles Kemper & Russell Hicks & Samuel S Hinds et al, director Fritz Lang, Chris
In 1858 an extraordinary heatwave struck London. It was the hottest ever recorded and it caused one of the most shocking and disgusting events in the City’s history: the Great Stink. At that time thousand of gallons of human excrement, factory pollution and even dead animals were being dumped into the Thames every day. The Great Stink of 1858 I: Contagion
The crisis was so devastating it forced the government to undertake one of the greatest engineering projects in history – the London sewer system. ibid.
The waste and raw sewage of three million Londoners was being dumped in the Thames. ibid.
Chief engineer Joseph Bazalgette: He had an extraordinary ambitious plan to transform London’s sewer network. ibid.
4,000 Londoners a year were dying of diseases caused by sewage. ibid.
The biggest public works in British history. ibid.
I wish with all my heart that everyone fighting in this war could have come with me through the barbed wire fence that leads to the inner compound of the camp. Beyond the barrier was a whirling cloud of dust – the dust of thousands of slowly moving people and with the dust was a smell sickly and thick, the smell of death and decay of corruption and filth. I passed through the barrier and found myself in the world of a nightmare. Richard Dimbleby, report BBC 19th April 1945
A shocking stink that still lurks beneath the palace to this day … 50 feet below there is a river. Buckingham Palace with Alexander Armstrong II, Channel 5 2023