Show 'EM1M It works quietly sometimes even without your knowing it but the effect of smell can be an overpowering trigger olmemories and desires IWost Mysterllous Sense ( a gNE40gEMAIM11111110 Ce Z Am ' il 4 4 Itu:N3' ''"114041"'N) ?41 ?°61111 i Our sense of smell is extraordinarily precise yet it's almost impossible to describe how something smells to someone who hasn't smelled it the smell of the glossy pages of a new book for example or the first damp sheets from a mimeograph machine Smell is the most direct of all our senses When! hold a violet to my nose and inhale odor molecules float back in the nasal cavity behind the bridge of the nose where they are absorbed by the mucosa containing receptor cells A 1: lit vitiongt 4 :7 w ' AMO l - Ili t r Ille001 A -- VA 1 T: ofir4r 104 Ak 10 $5- : i Z 1 - The author: Smell Is the most direct of our senses she says and its effect is Immediate poet contributing editor Diane Ackerman holds a PhD from Cornell University In addition to her three poetry collections she's the author of several works of nonfiction and numerous magazine articles She has been awarded grants by the National Endowment for the Arts and The Rockefeller Foundation This article is excerpted from her new book "A Natural History of the Senses" A prize-winni- NOTHING IS MORE MEMORABLE THAN A SMELL It can be unexpected momentary and fleeting yet it may conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the Poconos when wild blueberry bushes teemed with succulent fruit and the opposite sex was as mysterious as space travel or a family dinner of pot roast noodle pudding and sweet potatoes during a myrtle-ma- d August in a rural Midwestern town when both of one's parents were still alive Smells detonate in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of many years' worth of experiences Hit a trip-wiof smell and memories appear all at once We can detect more than 10000 different odors—so many in fact that our memories would fail us if we tried to jot down all the stuffs they represent re BY DIANE bearing microscopic hairs called cilia Millions of these receptor cells fire impulses to the brain's olfactory bulb and other smell centers Found at the upper end of each nostril the olfactory regions are yellow richly moist and full of fatty substances We think of heredity as ordaining how tall people will be the shape of their face and the color of their hair but it also determines the shade of yellow of the olfac- tory region The deeper and more intense the shade the keener and more acute the sense of smell When the olfactory bulb detects something 1''IN —during eating sex an emotional encounter a stroll through the park—it signals the cere- bral cortex and sends a message straight to the limbic system a mysterious ancient and intensely emotional section of our brain where we feel lust and invent The effect is immediate and undiluted by language thought or translation All smells fall into basic categories almost like primary colors: minty (peppermint) floral (roses) ethereal (pears) musky (musk) resinous (camphor) foul (rotten eggs) and acrid (vinegar) At Yale University researchers are studying how smell can decrease stress and increase alertness They claim that the smell of spiced apples can reduce blood pressure in people under stress and actually avert a panic attack And that lavender can wake up one's metabolism and make one more alert The Chronicle of Higher Education reports related tests at the University of Cincinnati which have shown how fragrance added to the atmosphere of a room can increase typing speed and work efficiency in general Perfume has obsessed every culture and religion as far back as we look It began in Mesopotamia as incense offered to the gods The word's Latin etymology tells us how it worked:per (through) fumare (smoke) Tossed onto a fire incense would fill the sky with smoke otherworldly and magical The first civilization we have record of using perfume regularly extravagantly and with sophistication was Egypt With their elaborate burial practices the Egyptians needed spices and unguents for embalming They used tons of incense in their J 1141 Our sense of smell is precise yet it is almost impossible to describe how something smells to someone who hasn't smelled it continued ACKERMAN Etin umnalakwaam PAGE 8 JUNE 10 1990 PARADE MAGAZINE |