Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1 April 1755, Belley, Ain – 2 February 1826, Paris) was a French lawyer and politician, and gained fame as an epicure and gastronome: "Grimod and Brillat-Savarin. Between them, two writers effectively founded the whole genre of the gastronomic essay."
Irrorateur - A type of spray gun, invented by Brillat-Savarin, which was used to perfume rooms, especially the dining room. Brillat-Savarin wrote in the preface to La Physiologie du gout, "I submitted to the council of the Society for the Encouragement of National Industries my irrorateur, a piece of apparatus invented by me, which is none other than a compressor spray that can fill a room with perfume. I had brought the spray with me, in my pocket. It was well-filled. I turned on the tap and, with a hissing sound, out came the sweet-smelling vapour which rose right up to the ceiling and then fell in tiny drops on the people present and on their papers. It was then that I witnessed, with indescribable pleasure, the heads of the wisest men in the capital bending under my irrorateur. I was enraptured to note that the wettest among them were also the happiest."
The pedantic name of the device comes from the Latin verb irrorare, meaning to sprinkle or to bedew.
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