# What does the inside of a human body smell like to a surgeon? What does cancer smell like? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 3, 2009, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-inside-of-a-human-body-smell-like-to-a-surgeon-what-does-cancer-smell-like/512437 "2009-10-03T04:32:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![brossa](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brossa/32/3040_2.png) [@brossa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brossa)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-inside-of-a-human-body-smell-like-to-a-surgeon-what-does-cancer-smell-like/512437/21 "2009-10-04T02:16:02Z")
> [@NajaNivea](#): > > 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’ll see that and raise you a cholecystoenteric fistula with subsequent necrotic gallbladder perforation and feculent peritonitis. Don’t make me reach into my sleeve for the Fournier’s gangrene card. ---
**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:** [October 4, 2009, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-inside-of-a-human-body-smell-like-to-a-surgeon-what-does-cancer-smell-like/512437/22 "2009-10-04T02:28:01Z")
> [@brossa](#): > > Don’t make me reach into my sleeve for the Fournier’s gangrene card. Oh, don’t play that card. I’ll gladly fold. Standard gas gangrene may be a royal flush, but it can’t beat 5 aces… ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-inside-of-a-human-body-smell-like-to-a-surgeon-what-does-cancer-smell-like/512437/23 "2009-10-04T02:40:10Z")
As to what cancer smells like, apparently there’s a distinctive odor to bladder cancer - though [it’s not humans that are capable of detecting it](http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/13945.php). ---
**Author:** ![Rysdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7cd45c/32.png) [@Rysdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysdad)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-inside-of-a-human-body-smell-like-to-a-surgeon-what-does-cancer-smell-like/512437/24 "2009-10-04T02:54:09Z")
> [@brossa](#): > > …Fournier’s gangrene… Had to look that one up. Oh, Christ. Thank God X-ray isn’t normally needed for that type of case. ---
**Author:** ![Canadjun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/76d3ee/32.png) [@Canadjun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Canadjun)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-inside-of-a-human-body-smell-like-to-a-surgeon-what-does-cancer-smell-like/512437/25 "2009-10-04T16:01:13Z")
> [@Rysdad](#): > > Had to look that one up. > > Oh, Christ. > > Thank God X-ray isn’t normally needed for that type of case. I also just had to look that up - eww!!!:eek: ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-inside-of-a-human-body-smell-like-to-a-surgeon-what-does-cancer-smell-like/512437/26 "2009-10-04T16:06:05Z")
> [@Rysdad](#): > > Had to look that one up. > > Oh, Christ. > > Thank God X-ray isn’t normally needed for that type of case. It’s imaged with ultrasound on occasion. Pity the sonographer. I second the frying steak smell of cautery. ---
**Author:** ![NajaNivea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/22d042/32.png) [@NajaNivea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NajaNivea)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-inside-of-a-human-body-smell-like-to-a-surgeon-what-does-cancer-smell-like/512437/27 "2009-10-04T16:26:44Z")
> [@brossa](#): > > I’ll see that and raise you a cholecystoenteric fistula with subsequent necrotic gallbladder perforation and feculent peritonitis. Don’t make me reach into my sleeve for the Fournier’s gangrene card. _hurk_ I never thought I’d be grateful that the worst stinking, putrid mass I’ve ever encountered were the ones found crammed up patients’ vaginas, but here I am. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-inside-of-a-human-body-smell-like-to-a-surgeon-what-does-cancer-smell-like/512437/28 "2009-10-04T17:51:44Z")
> [@brossa](#): > > I’ll see that and raise you a cholecystoenteric fistula with subsequent necrotic gallbladder perforation and feculent peritonitis. Don’t make me reach into my sleeve for the Fournier’s gangrene card. There was a lovely (read: gruesome) post here, several years back, from someone who worked at a hospital or a clinic where, as they put it delicately, was in an area where poorly maintained diabetes was endemic (I think it was Alabama). There was even a bit about a common procedure to carefully tape gauze over…er, pairs of things that were otherwise left exposed to the air after tissue debriding. The smell was supposedly noticeable from down hallways, and was not uncommon. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-inside-of-a-human-body-smell-like-to-a-surgeon-what-does-cancer-smell-like/512437/29 "2009-10-04T18:15:13Z")
Okay, that’s now reason #1 to be very aggressive with my diabetes management… ---
**Author:** ![Punoqllads](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d2c977/32.png) [@Punoqllads](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Punoqllads)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-inside-of-a-human-body-smell-like-to-a-surgeon-what-does-cancer-smell-like/512437/30 "2009-10-04T18:17:32Z")
More than any other reason I’ve ever heard, the statement most likely to engender proper maintainance of a man’s diabetes is to show him that his thang could fall off. ---
**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:** [October 4, 2009, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-inside-of-a-human-body-smell-like-to-a-surgeon-what-does-cancer-smell-like/512437/31 "2009-10-04T18:27:18Z")
> [@Punoqllads](#): > > More than any other reason I’ve ever heard, the statement most likely to engender proper maintainance of a man’s diabetes is to show him that his thang could fall off. I tell all my male patients that one of the first complications of diabetic neuropathy is usually erectile dysfunction, which does not respond well to viagra or other meds. Then I show them pictures of the later complications. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-inside-of-a-human-body-smell-like-to-a-surgeon-what-does-cancer-smell-like/512437/32 "2009-10-04T18:29:17Z")
> [@NajaNivea](#): > > +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… Dead whale. _Long_ dead whale. Now perhaps your smell beats it on quality, but the shear quantity and mass of rotting whale (or an elephant seal) mass beats it all to hell and gone. Inside of a healthy human smelt kind of coppery to me, but that was likely the blood. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2009, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-inside-of-a-human-body-smell-like-to-a-surgeon-what-does-cancer-smell-like/512437/33 "2009-10-05T13:15:57Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Dead whale. _Long_ dead whale. Now perhaps your smell beats it on quality, but the shear quantity and mass of rotting whale (or an elephant seal) mass beats it all to hell and gone. I’m thinking it may take a few squirts of Febreze® if you’re the marine pathologist in charge of autopsying a rotting Sperm whale who died from fulminant Founier’s gangrene sepsis laying next to a fetid Elephant seal with a long retained tampon. \*…but, even that’s not a patch on my wife’s cabbage and cheese casserole… \* ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2009, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-inside-of-a-human-body-smell-like-to-a-surgeon-what-does-cancer-smell-like/512437/34 "2009-10-07T11:11:58Z")
> [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](#): > > It’s imaged with ultrasound on occasion. Pity the sonographer. And it’s left to the poor coder to read the report. I had to give up yogurt for breakfast because its description often matched that of the pus the interventionalist drained. ---
**Author:** ![VunderBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/839c29/32.png) [@VunderBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VunderBob)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2009, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-inside-of-a-human-body-smell-like-to-a-surgeon-what-does-cancer-smell-like/512437/35 "2009-10-07T11:47:38Z")
EMT, not a surgeon. Healthy people that have large traumatic injuries smell like blood. I’ll also amen that cut bone does smell like burning hair. My wife used to get big beef bones for the dogs, and make me cut them with my chop saw. Besides smelling bad, they dulled the blade very quickly, and I soon told her any more attempts to make me cut bones would result in a divorce. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-inside-of-a-human-body-smell-like-to-a-surgeon-what-does-cancer-smell-like/512437.md?page=1)