# The Most Disgusting Odor **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 10, 2004, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-disgusting-odor/279181 "2004-12-10T18:59:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-disgusting-odor/279181/21 "2004-12-11T19:52:57Z")
> [@MadSam](#): > > In my office experience, removing a forgotten tampax or diaphragn is enough to put anyone on their heals gasping for breath > > ``` > also > > ``` > > a putred abcess especially when covered by a gauze dressing and a cast. > > I’ll race those 2 items against any of the previously mentioned malodorous chemicals in a contest. #1 happens? How? #2 I have personal experience. Yep. it stinks. Related to cadaverine, I suspect. Are cadaverine and putricine real words, or are chemical type folks having us on? I work around chemists and lab techs, and they do have a weird sense of humor. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-disgusting-odor/279181/22 "2004-12-11T19:57:00Z")
A retained tampon smells quite unpleasant. So does an anaerobic abscess when it’s drained. Worse is infarcted bowel, which ruptures while being removed during surgery. I have faced all 3 of the above, within inches of my nose, in the course of my career. But far worse than those 3 things combined was the odor associated with gas gangrene. ---
**Author:** ![chaoticbear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@chaoticbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaoticbear)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-disgusting-odor/279181/23 "2004-12-11T23:01:49Z")
[Putrescine](http://www.freearchive.info/pu/putrescine.html) [Cadaverine (and putrescine, actually. :P)](http://www.hort.purdue.edu/rhodcv/hort640c/polyam/po00003.htm) ---
**Author:** ![PaulFitzroy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/2acd7d/32.png) [@PaulFitzroy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulFitzroy)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-disgusting-odor/279181/24 "2004-12-11T23:29:52Z")
When I was 12 years old, I bought one of those inflatable chairs for my room which was then the rage among kids. My mom gave me an electric-powered high volume pump for blowing up big inflatable pools and the like, to inflate it, and I put it in my room and plugged it into the valve for the chair. I didn’t want to hold down the damn button for a half hour so I taped it down with scotch tape. Fifteen minutes later I went back into my room and the pump had exploded. Why, I don’t know. There was thick grayish smoke all over the room, literally hovering static in clouds, not dissipating. It smelled worse than anything I’ve ever smelled…I can’t really describe it, just a deep, burned type smell. Like when your vacuum cleaner screws up and starts smoking…it smelled like that. Then I picked up the pump to see what happened to it, and the inside of the pump smelled like that smoke times 100. The strongest, most toxic, disgusting smell I’d ever smelled. It probably wasn’t very good for me either. ---
**Author:** ![tygerbryght](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a9a28c/32.png) [@tygerbryght](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tygerbryght)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-disgusting-odor/279181/25 "2004-12-11T23:57:26Z")
> [@Qadgop the Mercotan](#): > > A retained tampon smells quite unpleasant. > > So does an anaerobic abscess when it’s drained. > > Worse is infarcted bowel, which ruptures while being removed during surgery. > > I have faced all 3 of the above, within inches of my nose, in the course of my career. > > But far worse than those 3 things combined was the odor associated with gas gangrene. I dunno how it compares, or what were the chemical components, but the absolute worst smell I’ve ever known was the odor from my mother’s cancer surgery (ovarian, though nobody understood it in 1956). I could barely stand to go into the room where she was, and _could not_ stay there for more than a couple of minutes. I’ve smelled other really bad-smelling cancers, but none of them were as bad, although lung cancer can smell pretty awful. Imagine how it feels to be unable to get near someone you love. Imagine how it would feel to stink that way yourself. :eek: I don’t know how the nurses, etc., were able to deal with it. I’m glad they were. I’ve smelled all kinds of feces; human and, I think pretty much every sort of domestic animal (I think swine is the worst of the lot; it’s why nobody wants to live near hog farms, and why it’s so unpleasant to drive through areas where they’re located in the summer). I’ve dealt with baby poo, and barf, and about everything that can come out of the original orifices, and none of them compete. Yes, they’re unpleasant, and it takes getting used to them in order to be able to tolerate them, but none of them really compete. ---
**Author:** ![olefin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d78d45/32.png) [@olefin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/olefin)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-disgusting-odor/279181/26 "2004-12-12T04:47:02Z")
> [@mangeorge](#): > > Isn’t mercaptan the stuff they add, in tiny amounts, to natural gas to make it detectable? Correct, it is injected into the gas for natural gas has no odor. We have a gas well on our property and get free gas but have to add our own mercaptan. Where I worked many years ago we used it by the barrels. It was used to control a chemical reaction in a process. Once I got it all over me… the only thing that I found would neutralize the terrible odor was Clorox. Also we used it in propane trucks… I think we put a cup full in a tanker load of propane. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-disgusting-odor/279181/27 "2004-12-12T06:36:04Z")
> [@mangeorge](#): > > Isn’t mercaptan the stuff they add, in tiny amounts, to natural gas to make it detectable? There’s lots of mercaptans. “Mercaptan” just refers to a group, also called “thiol”, and it’s just a sulfur atom bonded to a hydrogen. It’s analogous to an alcohol. But yes, I believe the scent added to natural gas is a mercaptan. > [@chaoticdonkey](#): > > Butyric acid is like _n_-butanoic acid, right? OMG, that stuff is bad. One and the same. I can’t imagine how anything could be worse-smelling. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-disgusting-odor/279181/28 "2004-12-12T06:45:45Z")
I remember hearing that cadaverine and putrescine are the aroma elements of the “corpse flower” (Amorphophallus titanum), those giant things that grow in the Asian jungle. [Here](http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ww0602.htm) is a really nice piece on stinking flowers. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-disgusting-odor/279181/29 "2004-12-12T06:49:10Z")
I agree. If cadaverine is worse than butyrate, I’d probably hurl if I got anywhere near it. You’d think, instead of teargas, riot control would just launch aerosolizing canisters of butyric acid at people. Everyone would just fall over and puke their guts out. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-disgusting-odor/279181/30 "2004-12-12T06:50:26Z")
Oops. Was replying to **Excalibre**. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-disgusting-odor/279181/31 "2004-12-12T18:49:16Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > I agree. If cadaverine is worse than butyrate, I’d probably hurl if I got anywhere near it. You’d think, instead of teargas, riot control would just launch aerosolizing canisters of butyric acid at people. Everyone would just fall over and puke their guts out. Aren’t these odorants hard to filter out, as in with a gas mask? I _think_ they said on a PBS story that the officers would need to wear tanks. ---
**Author:** ![KP](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a9adbd/32.png) [@KP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KP)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2004, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-disgusting-odor/279181/32 "2004-12-13T23:21:37Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > You’d think, instead of teargas, riot control would just launch aerosolizing canisters of butyric acid at people. Everyone would just fall over and puke their guts out. Yes, foul smelling compounds have been developed as “less lethal” weapons (actually “nonlethal” – but the companies have quit using that word for fear of lawsuits after freak incidents, and police departments don’t want their officers thinking they can use them with abandon). However, the _worst_ smelling compounds are overkill. When I was a kid, the Guinness Book of World records said the top candidates could stink up (i.e be detectable in) the air of an entire indoor football stadium (I forgot which stadium they specified). Since people have a varying susceptibility, a few small pistol or cannister rounds full of these “worst smelling” compounds in a city could be like a giant fart slowly floating downwind, making people throw up miles from the origin, be sucked into the ventillation system of a nearby high rise, or other wise cause long-lasting after effects. Worse, you’d never get the smell off the guy – it would be a problem for the officers, the paddy wagon, the police station and the other inmates in the jail [plus longer term contamination of the above facilities] The olfactory agents marketed to civilian and military agencies today are chosen as much for rapid dissipation or breakdown, and easy cleanup as for their raw power. ---
**Author:** ![spingears](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@spingears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spingears)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-disgusting-odor/279181/33 "2004-12-14T03:16:35Z")
> [@mangeorge](#): > > I maintain that, compared to other odors I’ve smelt, fresh adult shit doesn’t rank (heh heh) all that high. Baby poop\* is much worse, for example. > \*I don’t want to get smacked for calling baby poop “shit”. 😉 No psychit? A gangrene infection is another candidate. ---
**Author:** ![Alvis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alvis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alvis)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-disgusting-odor/279181/34 "2004-12-14T04:06:31Z")
Normal baby poo or meconium? > [@mangeorge](#): > > I maintain that, compared to other odors I’ve smelt, fresh adult shit doesn’t rank (heh heh) all that high. Baby poop\* is much worse, for example. > \*I don’t want to get smacked for calling baby poop “shit”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-disgusting-odor/279181.md?page=1)