December 17, 2024
2 read me
Book Review: The surprising return of our least appreciated sense
The nose knows more than we thought
The Forgotten Sense: The New Science of Smell and the Extraordinary Power of the Nose
By Jonas Olofsson.
Mariner, 2025 ($28)
As COVID spread around the world in early 2020, people began to report losing their sense of smell. Public health agencies focused on tracking the spread of the virus based on the more traditional symptoms of respiratory illness, such as cough and fever, and the loss of smell was initially treated as a curious anecdote rather than an important sign. But olfactory researcher Jonas Olofsson knew better: “I like to pretend that I helped protect the public when I repeated almost like a parrot to reporters that readers and listeners who suddenly lose their sense of smell should isolate themselves immediately,” he wrote. his new book about the central role of smell in our lives.
Olofsson is used to defending the meaning of smell, which many people seem to take for granted. For proof, he cites surveys in which Americans were asked to choose whether their sense of smell or their pinky toes was more valuable. Half chose the toe. In a follow-up survey in 2021, only 15 percent of respondents were in the group, but Olofsson says we still don’t fully understand or appreciate the “unique intelligence of the nose.”
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Smell has not always been the underdog of the senses. In previous centuries, scents encompassed everything from spirituality to morality to medicine: burnt offerings reached the gods to the heavens, medieval demons were thought to smell flatulence, and doctors used scents to diagnose and cure. In today’s screen-filled society that depends on sight and hearing, smell seems like an evolutionary relic. But while our sense of smell may be primal, it is not primitive.
Olofsson says that instead of passively reacting to odor molecules, our olfactory brain works with other brain regions to interpret odors. “Smell doesn’t act on its own,” he says, “but it’s smarter than that: it takes in all the signals in the environment and evaluates them using all the accumulated knowledge.”
Using this “cognitive perspective” on olfaction to guide readers through the current landscape of olfaction, Olofsson addresses the complex pheromone debate, the “swamp” of research on aromatherapy, electronic noses, and other digital scent technologies, and successes with olfaction. based brain training. His work reveals how this ancient and unabashed ability has a profound, untapped potential to enrich our lives.
