Smell, the Secret Seducer

From the useful (""children often cry less when their mother's clothing is laid unwashed next to their heads"") to the whimsical (""people wanting to smell as much as possible should crawl on the ground or lie on the floor during meetings""), Dutch psychologist Vroon comprehensively explores the mechanics of smell and its role in our behavior. Beginning with a history of the ""status of smell"" in Western culture, Vroon offers a laconic tour of the olfactory organ down to the level of the neuron and parts-per-million chemical interactions. A chapter called ""Smell Over One's Lifetime"" details the ""hedonic order"" of odor preferences and tolerances we develop as we mature. While many sections are more technical than chatty, the facts are always interesting: mucus, we learn, may be the medium in which smells dissolve, to be carried upward for closer perusal. Estrogen enhances odor discrimination, and thus ""women experience smells more intensely, and they are very clear as to whether they find a smell pleasant or unpleasant."" Proust may have just as well smelled his madeleine as tasted it, for ""smells activate the episodic memory,"" i.e., the memory of events with which they are associated. Sex and commerce are also smell-driven to some extent, although perfume (in which the two meet) may have the function of masking rather than advertising a person's charms, as it covers up the pheromones that incite sexuality. As Jimmy Durante said, ""Da nose knows,"" and now readers will too. (Sept.)