Catholic Ragemonkey

I'm Not One to Start a Panic, But...

the last time I checked there was a natural substance, other than the ones mentioned, which generates a sweet odor when it reaches maturity. The sweet odor is a strategy to help it continue to spread but making sure you take a nice big deep sniff of its spores. Yep, you guessed it. That sweet smell might be smallpox.

The sweet aroma is called the "foeter" of smallpox and at one time, it was used as a diagnostic tool to identify the presence of the disease. Granted, that to generate a discernable odor all over Lower Manhatten would require every man, woman, and child, (and probably a fair number of rats) to be infected and running hot with contagion, this probably isn't the actual source. But I had you worried, didn't I?