BMJ  2007;335:588-589 (22 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.39315.453056.AD

Feature

Sensory research

Scent trails

Geoff Watts, freelance journalist

London

geoff@scileg.freeserve.co.uk

Smells form some of our most memorable experiences, but people who cannot detect them are largely forgotten. Geoff Watts sniffs out the researchers

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Tell the world that you are blind or deaf or have no sense of touch and you can count on a measure of sympathy. But say that you have lost your sense of smell and the response will be, likely as not, indifference. We humans are not animals, are we? Of all our senses, smell is the least important.

Maybe so—but that is small consolation to people with the problem. Still more dispiriting for them is the lack of medical interest in disorders of smell, whether in treatment or research. Of the handful of UK clinicians with a special interest in the topic, two of the most active took it up more or less by chance and have to combine it with other work.

Unmet need

Evidence on the prevalence of olfactory disorders is patchy and conflicting. Tim Jacob, a physiologist who teaches a course on the senses at Cardiff University and . . . [Full text of this article]

Science of smell



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Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

serious causes of loss of smell in the front of your mind
jan a coebergh
bmj.com, 21 Sep 2007 [Full text]
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