| Résumé: | This paper focuses on late eighteenth-century Toluca as an example in order to account for changes in olfactory perception as an aspect of the process of civilization. A number of examples derived from notary documents illustrate the institutional steps taken in the urbanization of Toluca in the late eighteenth century. Although it is important to consider the role of state initiatives and scientific arguments in triggering such a change, the case of Manuel Lechuga y Diego de Ortiz shows two characteristic aspects of the social response facing sanitary reforms. The first refers to the legal issues involved, the tradition of “good administration” (buen gobierno), whose attribution is to dictate laws geared toward common wellbeing. Hence Ortiz's phrasing of his argument regarding the injustice done to his zahurdas, since the best laws of the kingdom were those that were passed after the pleas of cities' procurators were taken into account, men knowledgeable of everyday reality, “given that those in power cannot guess the particular situation and individual circumstances pertaining to each country and trade”. The second aspect involves the change of customs and perceptions, as well as the slow rate at which the health and urbanization measures that were enforced more strictly from the government were incorporated to everyday life, beginning at the period of Bourbon reforms.
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