In some accounts of certain epidemics, the usual symptoms are mentioned : fever, chills, coughing and so on (but nothing about sores or pustules). But these accounts often talk about a stench associated with the disease : a fetid sweating, or just a general foul smell about the sick person. We have Covid and flus today but stench is not associated with those diseases unless personal hygiene is a question. The epidemics I am referring to did not involve symptoms that often involve stench, such as open sores or pustules. So what accounts for this stench that accounts from the 1800s often mention? Besides personal hygiene issues, what other explanation is there?
A lingering belief in the miasma theory of contagion is almost certainly to blame. I hope someone comes along to provide a more in-depth response regarding the historical connections between illness and bad smells, but in the meantime you might be interested in learning how scented goods like perfumes and pomanders were used to combat what were believed to be disease-causing foul odors by reading my response to the question Outside of plague doctors stuffing their beaks with herbs, were perfumes believed to have prophylactic ability? That is, in Antiquity, the Middle Ages or the Early Modern period, did people applying perfumes to themselves believe that they were warding against disease?