Free A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman

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.
    Because his taste buds still worked, he could detect foods that were salty, bitter, sour, and sweet, but he had lost all of the heady succulence of life. Seven years later, still unable to smell and deeply depressed, he sued the driver of the van and won. It was understood, first, that his life had become irreparably impoverished and, second, that without a sense of smell his life was endangered. In those seven years, he had failed to detect the smell of smoke when his apartment building was on fire; he had been poisoned by food whose putrefaction he couldn’t smell; he could not smell gas leaks. Worst of all, perhaps, he had lost the ability of scents and odors to provide him with heart-stopping memories and associations. “I feel empty, in a sort of limbo,” he told a reporter. There was not even a commonly known name for his nightmare. Those without hearing are labeled “deaf,” those without sight “blind,” but what is the word for someone without smell? What could be more distressing than to be sorely afflicted by an absence without a name? “Anosmia” is what scientists call it, a simple Latin/Greek combination: “without” + “smell.” But no casual term—like “smumb,” for instance—exists to give one a sense of community or near-normalcy.
    The “My Turn” column in
Newsweek
of March 21, 1988, by Judith R. Birnberg, contains a deeply moving lament about her sudden loss of smell. All she can distinguish is the texture and temperature of food. “I am handicapped: one of 2 million Americans who suffer from anosmia, an inability to smell or taste (the two senses are physiologically related).… We so take for granted the rich aroma of coffee and the sweet flavor of oranges that when we lose these senses, it is almost as if we have forgotten how to breathe.” Just before Ms. Birnberg’s sense of smell disappeared, she had spent a year sneezing. The cause? Some unknown allergy. “The anosmia began without warning.… During the past three years there have been brief periods—minutes, even hours—when I suddenly became aware of odors and knew that this meant that I could also taste. What to eat first? A bite of banana once made me cry. On a few occasions a remission came at dinner time, and my husband and I would dash to our favorite restaurant. On two or three occasions Isavored every miraculous mouthful through an entire meal. But most times my taste would be gone by the time we parked the car.” Although there are centers for treating smell and taste dysfunction (of which Monell is probably the best known), little can be done about anosmia. “I have had a CAT scan, blood tests, sinus cultures, allergy tests, allergy shots, long-term zinc therapy, weekly sinus irrigations, a biopsy, cortisone injections into my nose and four different types of sinus surgery. My case has been presented to hospital medical committees.… I have been through the medical mill. The consensus: anosmia caused by allergy and infection. There can be other causes. Some people are born this way. Or the olfactory nerve is severed as a result of concussion. Anosmia can also be the result of aging, a brain tumor or exposure to toxic chemicals. Whatever the cause, we are all at risk in detecting fires, gas leaks and spoiled food.” Finally, she took a risky step and allowed a doctor to give her prednisone, an anti-inflammatory steroid, in an effort to shrink the swelling near olfactory nerves. “By the second day, I had a brief sense of smell when I inhaled deeply.… The fourth day I ate a salad at lunch, and I suddenly realized that I could taste everything. It was like the moment in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ when the world is transformed from black and white to Technicolor. I savored the salad: one garbanzo bean, a shred of