The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-09-02
EDUCATION OF THE NOSE.
The Neglected Sense Of Smell May
Have Great Possibilities.


Have Great Possibilities.
From the Boston Courier.
With all the developments of human
knowledge and the improvements in the
methods of education. there has been a
strange lack of appreciation of the i'm
provement of the sense of smell. The
modern systems of education are supposed
to be aimed at the bringing to perfection
OF all the powers of body and mind, and
yet one has only to consider little to re-
aliZe how limited their recognition of the
needs and possibilities of the senses really
Is. The faculties both of taste and smell
are practically ignored by modern educa-
tors. The art of gastronomy does some
thing for the sense of taste, but the sense
OF smell has not even the benefit of indi-
rect education. 1t is ignored and neg
lected as completely as if there was no
knowledge of It's existence.
Yet the capa bilities of this sense are
by no means small. On the merely utili-
tartan side it is easy to see that if the
nose were trained to be sufficiently sensi-
tive it would be able to be of infinite SER
vice. The good, old-fashioned housewife
trained her nose to warn her of fire: to
tell her when an accident happened to
the dishes cooking on or in the stove,
which she could not stop to watch with
her eyes. In rare instances men in
especial lines have trained their sense of
smell to assist them in their work One
sees the dealers IN dairy products, and
in some other goods determining the
quality and condition of their goods by
smelling of them, but this is an excep-
tional matter, which is far more apt to
excite the amusement of others than to
call attention to the possibilities which
lie neglected in the nerves of henose.
The animal kingdom should long ago
have given man the hint to cultivate this
sense. 1t is true that animals are often
furnished with nerves of far greater deli
cacy and reach than those Of man, but
this is after all only the visible sign of
what is the result of continued neglect to
any functions of the body. If men had
given decent attention 70 the sense of
smell they would not now need to be out
done in this particular by the beasts of
the wilderness. If proper amount Of
systematic training and development of
the nerves of smell could be generally
practiced by man kind for a generation or
two it would undoubtedly be found that
the wild animals were in this particular
not necessarily so far in advance of men
as to make it impossible to overtake
them.
The delicacy Of the perceptions which
ally themselves to the sense of smell has
often been commented upon, and this in
itself should suggest the advisability of
making much of it, The mind seems
especially sensitive to the suggestion Of
odors, and yet this fact has never been
properly taken advantage of. 1t is time
for the recognition of the advisability of
developing all the possibilities of the
human body. AS 1t stands at present,
sight and hearing are made to do pretty
much all the work Of the perceptions, and
it is time thai the other senses were
called upon to do their share. Let the
sense Of smell be trained and its possibili-
ties studied. Who can tell TO what i'm
portant results this might lead2