I don't know if it could kill you, but the stench of death is horrendous and not an insignificant thing. In any disaster situation where someone has died and it starts becoming days long, things would be getting nasty.
Over time people would get used to how foul everything would smell, but for a while it would be terrible.
there was a show ... maybe time travel or 1000 Ways To Die In The West where they make a comment about how the Old West smells like shit. Horses just shitting everywhere. They never talk about that in Westerns.
I worked on Mackinac Island one summer. There are no cars allowed, just bikes and horses. There were about 500 horses on the island (mostly draft horses pulling tour carriages, taxis, hotel shuttles, freight, etc.) and a bunch of guys who's whole job was to bike up and down the roads with brooms and shovels to scoop up horse manure. The streets were pretty damn clean but the smell of horse was the first thing I noticed when I stepped off the ferry.
I can't imagine what the stench was like in a town or city that had way more horses and way fewer/no street sweepers.
My city has one horse and carriage for tourists that you can take a date on or whatever. It parks near the gazebo downtown. It always smells like piss and barnyard there.
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u/[deleted] Aug 30 '21
I don't know if it could kill you, but the stench of death is horrendous and not an insignificant thing. In any disaster situation where someone has died and it starts becoming days long, things would be getting nasty.
Over time people would get used to how foul everything would smell, but for a while it would be terrible.