Smell

By Anonymous -
One rainy night in 1976, a thirty-three-year-old mathematician went out for an after-dinner stroll.  Everyone considered him not just a gourmet but a wunderkind, because he had the ability to taste a dish and tell you all its ingredients with shocking precision.  One writer described it as a kind of “perfect pitch.”  As he stepped into the street, a slow-moving van ran into him and he hit his head on the pavement when he fell.  The day after he got out of the hospital, he discovered to his horror that his sense of smell was gone.
This is an example from the book of a person who developed anosmia as a result of an accident to the head.  This disabled his brain in such a way that it now could not interpret sensory information as a sense of smell.  Specifically, there has been damage to the olfactory bulbs which means now the person is no longer able to smell or distinguish different scents.  Some people develop anosmia in ways that are similar to the mathematician above; however, there are many other ways to acquire the disease.  For example, exposure to viruses and bacteria as well as other environmental factors can all have severe negative impacts on the olfactory bulb.  In fact, the actual receptors, the nerve cells where they are located, and supporting cells and tissue can all be damaged and lead to the development of anosmia.  The brain and the olfactory bulb are so closely connected to each other, along with the other millions of processes going on in the brain, so damage to these areas can be significant.  Attached is an article that discusses the causes of anosmia, as well as an article discussing diagnosis and treatment.  Typically, people don’t appreciate their sense of smell and many take it for granted.  Imagine what it would be like to never be able to smell again.



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