Smells and Bells

During the first week of May, we started a new unit: Touch. First, we had a massage therapist employed by professor give a presentation about her line of work. We also read The Deepest Sense by Constance Classen, which gave a history of touch in the Middle Ages. The masseuse’s presentation covered how she first got into the field, as well as how different massage therapies work on a patient. A memorable part of the presentation was the raki energy exercise with Ann and her sore shoulder. Three people got up, placed hands on her back, and directed positive energy at her shoulders. When they were done, Ann said her shoulder felt better. How? I could write this off as a placebo effect, but touch, after all, is the deepest sense. Touch is emotionally interconnected to our well-being, studies show babies need touch to develop healthily. In a theoretical sense, the raki energy exercise seems plausible because touch facilities the connection between two bodies, transferring warmth and go...

I thought it was very interesting in  Constance Classen's The Deepest Sense: A Cultural History of Touch, that he spend time discussing the environment of the houses that people in the dark ages. In particular I really enjoyed the description of beds, simply because they were so vastly different from ours. looking back at all of the rough textures of the past it makes us modern day people look like wimps. I think that without all of those rough textures our skin and our receptors in our skin are probably alot more sensitive. I also wonder how different their brains would be, would the area of the brain related to touch be larger or smaller? He mentions that they way that people heated their homes was with fire. The rooms would be filled with smoke from the fire place and make everything they own smell like smoke. I personally love the smell of firewood and its very noticeable to me. After awhile I bet they couldn't even smell it anymore. Does that...