m&l ialnuarySl, 1981* *
Scents Me Powerftil Memories For Many, Survey Reveals
WASHINGTON - On walks
around her neighborhood, a
California woman pauses to sniff
an oleander blossom.
“Instantly,” she writes, “I am 10
years old again, standing barefoot
in the soft, dry desert sand of the
summer camp near Alexandria,
Egypt, where I spent nearly every
summer of my childhood.”
Years after a “sad affair of the
heart” in the 19505, a Missouri
dentist gets a whiff of a friend’s
cologne that reminds him of the
after-shave lotion he had worn in
those days. “Bang! I was getting a
teen-ager’s nervous flutters in the
stomach all over again,” he writes.
Hugging Old
Suits
A lonely widow climbs the stairs
to her husband’s empty bedroom,
opens the closet door, and pulls out
his old suits. She hugs them
because they still carry his
trademark odors Old Spice and
smoking tobacco. “I stand there,
making believe, close my eyes,
and cry,” she writes.
These responses are contained in
the nearly 1,700 letters the
National Geographic Society has
received since September, when a
scientific scratch-and-sniff survey
was mailed to the society’s nearly
11 million members.
About 1.5 million members
worldwide an unusually large
percentage for such mailings
have returned the survey. Its
computerized results will be
analyzed by scientists at the
Monell Chemical Senses Center of
Philadelphia and published by
National Geographic magazine in
mid-1967.
Monell scientists, too, have
answered dozens of letters
responding to the survey, many of
them related to medical questions.
The correspondence leaves no
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doubts about the power of the little
understood sense of smell to evoke
sharp memories and powerful
emotions, and occasionally to
cause physical- and mental
anguish.
One of the scratch-and-sniff
panels “brought back memories of
childhood” to a Florida woman,
“of standing by the kitchen counter
on a brisk autumn evening wat
ching my mother strain the cloves
from the hot cider she was pouring
into my waiting mug. ’ ’
A Texas woman describes the
odors that attracted her to her
mate: “My husband’s smell is
pretty constant, very sweet and
pleasant and clean, like the
mixture of clover and alfalfa hay
my dad used to bale.”
Craved Dangerous
Smell
The four pregnancies of an
Illinois woman caused certain
odors to become unusually acute to
her. During one pregnancy, she
writes, “I craved the smell of car
exhaust dangerous, to say the
least! ” During her last pregnancy,
the smell of the family dog made
her sick, and she repeatedly
bathed it with sweet-scented
shampoo.
One of the unusual smelled
disorders described in the letters
to Monell is that of a New York
City student who emits unpleasant
odors through his nose in humid
weather. The center has offered to
help him find the cause.
A California woman writes
Charles J. Wysocki.one of two
Monell scientists who are working
on the survey the other is Avery
Gilbert that flu has left her with
a change in the taste of some foods
but not others. “HELP I want to
enjoy those foods again,” she
writes.
Wysocki does what he can for
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In a letter to the Geographic,
another woman from California,
who became deaf in adulthood,
writes that improved scent
detection accompanied her
deafness: “It could result from
increased memory and/or a true
extending of the scent-detecting
physiology.”
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her. First he explains that, except
for sweet, sour, bitter, and salty,
taste is really .smell. “Your
situation is unique” because the
loss is partial and not total, he
writes. He sends her a list of taste
and smell centers and invites her
to visit Monell if she comes East.
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A minister who directs a support
group of chemically sensitive
people is one of several Society
members who found the survey’s
scents offensive. “I had to air your
magazine outside for days, and it
still smelled,” she writes. “We are
living a life of misery. I was not so
sensitive until I got overwhelmed
with odors through the years. ’ ’
Dominated By
Odors
Wood‘Smoke from a neighbor’s
fireplace drove an elderly upstate
New York couple from their home
and ruined his wife’s health. The
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When is a boat like a pile of snow?
When it is adrift.
What is often plowed but never planted?
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Where would a polar bear keep its money?
In a snow bank.
Why should you never tell jokes while
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husband writes: “Smells are
always on her mind. This has taken
over her life, and I’m afraid that
only death will release her from
the pain of such an unhappy
existence...”
In contrast, some of the letters
are lighthearted. One man
suggests employing his wife in
smell tests. “She is an expert,” he
writes. “She is a Baptist and can
smell beer over the telephone. ’ ’
A woman in Texas seeks advice.
“I smell things I see on TV,” she
writes. “Everyone tells me I’m
crazy. What do you think? ”
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