When a surgeon opens someone up what does it smell like as they are working on the body? Do cancer and other diseases have particular smells?
Umm…surgeons wear masks.
To prevent infection.
So, I’d guess they don’t smell much, at all.
Do you think they breathe via teleportation of air directly into their lungs?
Surgical masks absorb liquid and gunk from the surgeon’s face to protect the patient. They don’t block gases or other smellocules emanating from the patient. OR personnel are able to detect odors easily, which is important, because an unexpected odor during a surgery can be indicative of a serious problem.
mrAru spent a week with an exploded appendix, he said when his doc cut him open, more than one person in the room hurled. Peritonitis apparently smells pretty much like a rotting corpse.
I had a drainage tube sticking out of my abdomen for over a year, following a botched appendectomy and peritonitis. Yes, “like a rotting corpse” is an accurate description.
Okay, so serious infection reeks – what about cutting into an uninfected body? Like for a hysterectomy or something, where something needs to be removed for reasons other than infection.
A surgeon can definitely smell the patient in the OR. There are a large number of things going on during surgery that generate distinctive smells.
Anesthetic gases typically have a distinctive odor, which is important in detecting whether there is a leak in the system.
The opened abdomen or chest cavity has a mild, inoffensive, damp meat/blood smell, like you may get off of a room-temperature raw steak.
The Bovie electrocautery device used to cut and coagulate tissue makes wet smoke that smells differently depending on the tissue being cooked; I’ve always thought that Bovie smoke from the liver and/or spleen smells worse than from other organs, but that’s a personal opinion.
The argon beam coagulator produces an ozone-type smell in addition to the smell of cooked tissue.
The harmonic scalpel doesn’t scorch, but it does produce a hazy mist that is kind of like smoke.
Pus and dead tissue can have particularly foul odors; naturally stool and vomit will as well. Partially digested blood in the GI tract has a very distinctive bad odor once it is exposed to the outside air. Bile has a chemically smell to it. Most ORs have a vial of Oil of Wintergreen or other odorant that the staff can dab inside their masks to partially cover the odor in bad cases. Burns, dead bowel, peritonitis, necrotizing fasciitis, abscesses, etc. can smell so bad that you may want to hurl, and the smell can stick with you for a long time.
A tumor of whatever kind doesn’t really have a unique smell under most circumstances. Electrocautery on a hepatic primary may smell different that electrocautery on a lipoma, but not in a way that I’d call diagnostic.
Well, many of the abdominal organs and cavities have odors you wouldn’t write home about, but there are some pleasant surprises you may encounter whilst exploring the musculoskeletal system, if you use your imagination. The fragrance of smoking marrow when your scrub nurse doesn’t dropper enough saline onto your oscillating blade during bone cuts combined with the sweet pungency of burning adipose from electrocauterizing through subcutaneous tissue is not unlike that of a sizzling New York Strip from Ruths Chris. In the mood for a refreshing chicken and grape salad? Simply close your eyes and inhale as you aspirate a large abscess growing Pseudomonas aeruginosa…
…excuse me, I think it’s time for lunch…
Yeah, cut bone stinks. Like burning hair, IMO.
This is one of the greatest threads ever! Thanks Brossa and Tibbytoes!
Sometimes it’s possible to learn too much at this place.
This thread is nowhere near too informative. It’s wonderfully informative. Especially the parts that compare sizzling human fat and marrow to a good steak frying up. Makes me hungry just thinking about it.
Reminds me of a short story I read once: They’re Made out of Meat by Terry Bisson. It’s available for free at the authors website, along with some of his other short fiction.
I love this site. 
Pseudomonas never smelled like a chicken salad to me.
Chicken shit, maybe. But not salad.
Otherwise, brossa nailed it pretty well.
Two smells I can’t stand: Gas gangrene and retained tampons.
To clarify: more “grape” than “chicken” smell of the chicken & grape salad to which I referred. But, still better than this strain—rotten potatoes, blech…
…and, it takes years to refine your palate to enjoy the aroma of gas gangrene. 
If veterinary surgeries are any point of reference, one of my most hurk inducing odors is the smell of a bone saw or orthopedic drill in action. I can keep it down, but the smell sticks with me for days.
Honest question: how does this happen? Lost? Stuck? Forgotten about? Worse?
All of the above. Often add in several days or a good, healthy week of unprotected sex on top of it all.
+1 to the good doc on that call. There is nothing… absolutely nothing on this earth so stomach-turning as that sort of festering pestilence emerging from a patient’s vagina at the end of a pair of forceps. Rotting blood, tissue, cotton, semen, vaginal discharge…
I’ve thought about this, actually. I’ve wondered what happened if I was in a serious accident when I was having my period. I’m assuming this?
All of those have been given as reasons, yes.