The Worst Smelling Times To Be Alive, Ranked

The “Great Stink of 1858” came from the River Thames which, by that time, was rife with human, animal, and industrial waste. The presence of dead animals and a lack of sanitation contributed to the odor when a heatwave stuck the city during the summer months. As early as 1834, the realities of how poor the water in Thames was received notice from the likes of humorist cleric Sydney Smith who said, He who drinks a tumbler of London water has literally in his stomach more animated beings than there are men, women and children on the face of the globe. Accounts of the "Great Stink" years later from observers like Charles Dickens attested to its putrid nature. He said, I can certify that the offensive smells, even that short whiff, have been of a most head-and stomach-distending nature. It was also described as “a pestiferous and typhus breeding abomination” and credited for ending “gentility of speech” because “it stinks, and whoso once inhales the stink can never forget it and can count himself lucky if he lives to remember it.” The mention of typhus highlighted the continued presence of the miasma theory, a belief that the smell was causing disease. Diseases like typhus and cholera were actually spread because people were still using water from the Thames to drink and wash. After Dr. John Snow tested his theory along those lines in 1854, it became clear that cholera and the loss of life from it was due to the poor water quality. That, combined with the reality that the smell didn't discriminate by social class or influence, including members of Parliament, prompted efforts to clean up the city due to the odor several years later and ultimately led to the building of a new sewer system in the city.

In the ancient Roman world, there were efforts made to combat unpleasant odors, but that doesn't mean they always worked. In fact, they might have just added to the overwhelming smells one would come upon. The smells emanating from kitchens would range from pleasant to putrid. Bread and other foods that one might enjoy smelling were accompanied by smoke from ovens, rotting animal carcasses used in cooking, and specific foodstuffs like garum. Garum was, according to Pliny the Elder, made, of the guts of fish and the other parts that would otherwise be considered refuse; these are soaked in salt, so that garum is really liquor from the putrefaction of these matters. Alongside garum, body odors from humans - especially during the hottest months of the year - existed in cities like Rome. In an age where foul smells and dirt were considered miasma or pollution, they were also believed to be associated with disease. This extended to individual people who, if they smelled, were associated with the lower classes and the dregs of society. While Rome itself had a sewer system of sorts, it wasn't one that prevented the smell of human waste from seeping into the streets. Add to that the collection of urine from public toilets - there was even a tax on urine under Emperor Vespasian because it was an important source of ammonia to be used to clean and tan alike. Information about Vespasian's tenure as Roman Emperor from Suetonius reveals more details about what one might expect to see and smell in ancient Rome: Once when he was taking breakfast, a stray dog brought in a human hand from the cross-roads⁠ and dropped it under the table.⁠ Again, when he was dining, an ox that was ploughing shook off its yoke, burst into the dining-room, and after scattering the servants, fell at the very feet of Vespasian as he reclined at table, and bowed its neck as if suddenly tired out.

Bathing during the 16th century was limited, as was the case at many points in history. That said, King Henry VIII bathed fairly frequently. This didn't mean he wasn't affected by fleas and lice, but he also had a patch of fur on his person to attract them away from his skin. In order to accommodate all of the people at his court, Henry provided garderobes, or latrines. They would inevitably start to smell with all of the use, however. Henry, for his part, used a chair with a pot in it as a portable toilet. His Groom of the Stool had the responsibility of monitoring its contents and emptying it when necessary. Late in his reign, the odors of life at the Tudor court were accompanied by a smell coming from the body of the king himself. Henry exacerbated a leg wound jousting in 1536 and, combined with his gout and “marvellously excessive” appetite, developed ulcers on his leg. To treat them, doctors lanced the wounds, causing pus to ooze from them each time they were reopened. The smell was offensive and, the stench from his infected ulcers could be identified three rooms away, often heralding the monarch's arrival. Getting close to a Tudor monarch came with other risk of putrid odors. Queen Elizabeth I's teeth were so bad that they ultimately fell out or had to be pulled. Her rotten teeth reportedly made Elizabeth's breath truly awful. Her successor, James I, was also quite smelly because: he never washed, he itched constantly; because he did not change clothes until they wore out, he reeked of body odor.

From the outset, Versailles had a lot working against it. Originally a hunting lodge, Versailles was built in in a marsh, described as, the dullest and most ungrateful of all places, without prospect, without wood, without water, without soil; for the ground is all shifting sand or swamp, the air accordingly bad. This didn't stop King Louis XIV from turning Versailles into an elaborate palace surrounded by gardens, fountains, and statutes. Because King Louis XIV declared Versailles to be the “capital” of his kingdom in 1682, it became home to thousands of people. Baths were possible for some individuals, albeit rarely and only with cold water. King Louis XIV had a large bathtub in his apartment but the extent to which he used it remains in question. In lieu of washing one's body, hands were kept clean, but this didn't stop grime from accumulating on clothes and bedding. Wearing wigs was also common and, to keep offensive odors at bay, they were doused with bold fragrances. The use of perfume and the like didn't keep bugs away, however. And, by one account, The unpleasant odors in the park, gardens, even the chateau, make one's gorge rise. The communicating passages, courtyards, buildings in the wings, corridors, are full of urine and feces; a pork butcher actually sticks and roasts his pigs at the bottom of the ministers' wing every morning; the avenue Saint-Cloud is covered with stagnant water and dead cats. The “dead cats” may have been near the giant cesspool at Versailles, used to collect human and animal waste as well. Human waste was collected in chamber pots and thrown out into the pile but this didn't always take place. Observers noticed, the people stationed in the galleries in front of our room piss in all the corners. It is impossible to leave one's apartments without seeing somebody pissing. King Louis XIV had unique odors of his own coming form his body. He had horrible teeth, reportedly toothless by his late 40s. His teeth essentially rotted due to the sugary foods he ate. Digestive issues meant he “let out what does not want to stay in” and broke wind often.

New York City is the largest city in the United States, something that was true during 1970s and 1980s as much as it is as of 2025. WIth millions of people living, working, and visiting New York City and the entire metropolitan area, it makes sense that tons of garbage would be produced daily. In 1975, trash piled up during a strike in December that, after 10 days, left as much as “55,000 tons of uncollected refuse on the street.” By the time it was over, roughly 70,000 tons had accumulated. Business owners like RIchard Bernet complained at the time that a restaurant nearby left their trash outside his shop: The mess smells, but you get philosophic about it. They've been piling it up in front of my place. Four years later, when a tugboat strike halted trash delivery to landfills on Staten Island, another strike brought out rats in droves. When trash collectors went on strike in 1981, a lot of that trash piled up - and just kept piling. The result was filth and stench. For 17 days, trash lined streets, rats were out in abundance (it was December so they weren't as rampant as they could have been), and the smell was overwhelming. Even after the strike ended, however, people waited amid “not too appetizing conditions” brought on by the “unsightliness” as well as “the odor [that] leaves a certain impression that lingers.”

Looking back at the medieval world leads many people to believe that everything about the time stunk. There were, of course, foul odors as a result of comparatively rudimentary sanitary practices, animals present at every turn, and scant bathing, but when the bubonic plague hit during the 14th century, the smell got far worse. During the Middle Ages, the miasma theory held that disease resulted from bad air like it had in antiquity. Because rotting flesh and decaying bodies polluted the air even more than it was already tainted, deaths from the bubonic plague made the miasma worse. Even before death from the bubonic plague, however, an individual gave off foul smells as a result of the disease. Flesh began to rot and the buboes that took shape on an afflicted individual's body would rupture, releasing a foul smelling pus. Girolamo Mercuriale, a plague doctor from Italy writing during the 16th century, later identified one the “foul-smelling” pustules as one of the identifying symptoms of the plague. A century later, another physician in London said the “vile” breath of a patient accompanied “horribly stinking” sweat, too. There were efforts to make sure the bodies of plague victims were buried accordingly, to “avoid the foul stench which the bodies of the dead give off.” That said, there may have been too many bodies to bury or people simply didn't venture out to do so for fear of the miasma. Not everyone was afraid or hid in their homes, however. According to Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron, those individuals, went about, carrying in their hands, some flowers, some odoriferous herbs and other some divers kinds of spiceries, which they set often to their noses, accounting it an excellent thing to fortify the brain with such odours, more by token that the air seemed all heavy and attainted with the stench of the dead bodies and that of the sick and of the remedies used.

Smells from people, animals, and the environs in ancient Greek settlements would have been comparable to those in other parts of the region at the time. Body odor was common and for ancient physicians used as a diagnostic tool of sorts. The use of perfumed oils to combat foul smells - or at least coat one's self in pleasant ones - has been mentioned in numerous ancient sources. In Greek gymnasia, athletes coated themselves in olive oil and smeared dirt and sand on their bodies. Oil was as sacred as it was practical and medicinal. When came time to remove the oil, slaves used instruments called strigils to scrape the athletes' bodies clean. Perhaps more offensive was what historian Britta K. Ager described as “coercive” incense. She described them intentionally repulsive and “used to force the cooperation of various gods if they have not been responsive to normal incense and requests for aid." A recipe for one such offering combined "a mouse, goat's fat, material [feces]… from a dog-faced baboon, ibis egg, crab, a moon beetle, wormwood, and garlic pounded together with vinegar.” Intentionally designed to provoke a deity, Dr. Ager tried one of the recipes to see what it smelled like. She later said, It was hands down the most disgusting thing I've ever smelled in my life. My entire house smelled like garlic and death.

On the American frontier, using outhouses was simply part of life (unless one relieved themselves in the woods or some other outdoor location). Outhouses were built close to homes but, ideally, far enough away that the smell wouldn't make its way into living spaces. When inside an outhouse, the smell would have been overwhelming despite attempts to stave off odors with lime. The absence of regular bathing contributed to body odor as did the availability of clean clothes. In some circumstances, as physician Arthur Hertzler noted, All the boys were sewed into their clothes in the fall when cold weather approached... They woke in the morning all dressed... In the spring, the clothes were ripped off and the child saw himself for the first time in a number of months. Perhaps the worst smelling place on the American frontier was the saloon. Communal towels lined the bar so men could wipe beer foam from their faces while cuspidors - repositories for tobacco spit - were in present throughout the saloon. On the whole, a saloon could be described as having, a strong sickening smell, while the worst steamed with odors from empty beer kegs around [the] entrance and obnoxious receptacles [urinals] just up to the rear.