The Sensational Past: How the Enlightenment Changed the Way We Use Our Senses

Sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch—as they were celebrated during the Enlightenment and as they are perceived today.

Blindfolding children from birth? Playing a piano made of live cats? Using tobacco to cure drowning? Wearing “flea”-colored clothes? These actions may seem odd to us, but in the eighteenth century, they made perfect sense.

As often as we use our senses, we rarely stop to think about their place in history. But perception is not dependent on the body alone. Carolyn Purnell ...