Evening star., 1949-01-21
Stars, Men and Atoms
|. ests Show ! Out of 100 .
Suffers Smell Blindness
Deficiency Found to Be Hereditary
and Follows Complex Patterns
By Thomas X. Henry

Some folks can't smell skunk
This smell blindness" is hereditary and
somewhat like color blindness.
A report with tests of more than 1900
persons, nearly one out of 100 of whom showed
this deficiency to some degree has been made
to the American Genetic Association by DIR.
Paul M. Patterson and Barbara A. Lauder of
Hollins College, Va.
The subjects were asked to sniff O bottle
containing q solution Of butyl mercaptan,
whose odor is very close to that Of skunk,
and which is very penetrating and disagreeabls
to most persons. All were students or relatives
OF students living in the neighborhood
Some, it was found, had essentially no
sense OF smell. Others could not detect the
skunk odor, regardless of the strength of the
solution, but had no difficulty with most other
odors. Some could smell the chemical only
with very strong concentrations
Patterns Are Complex.
There is every indication, the report says,
that the various types of smell blindness are
hereditary, but apparently they follow complex
patterns, because in many cases parents did
not show the same deficiency
Following the butyl mercaptan tests those
showing a small deficiency were tested with
vanilla extract, oil of cloves tar and the foul
smelling hydrogen sulfide. In each case it was
ascertained that the defect could not be due
to any accident after BIRTH
Sometimes, the report says, this smell blind
ness is very delicately adjusted. DR. Patterson
and Miss Lauder cited previous reports Of
persons unable to smell pink verbenas but with
entirely normal sensitivity to the odor Of red
Verbenas To most people there Is absolutely
no difference between the two.
There also are reports of persons with q
quite acute smell sense for mild odors who are
completely unable to detect very pungent odors.
Others are blind" to the odors of alcohol.
ether or pepper
The present evidence indicates that, like the
bleeding disease, hemophilia, this defect is
passed on entirely through the female line of
descent. 1t affects, however, both male and
female children in an equal degree.
Fear Is the greatest danger to be feared from
an atomic bomb
Frightful as some of it's actual effects may
be, they actually are duplicated In everyday
experience and owe their greatest terror to
mystery.
This is the conclusion of Dr. Austin M Brues,
radiation effects expert on the staff OF the
Argonne Laboratory of the Atomic Energy
Commission at the University of Chicago.
From study of Japanese victims and of
experimental animals used in the Bikini tests,
DR.. Brues says, the actual physical effects of
the deadly radiations now are fairly well UNDER
stood. There is no single effect that cannot be
produced by fairly well-known chemical agents.
The rays act essentially by creating poisons in
the body
There is one major advantage over poisons,
he points out. The latter often are very diff.
cult to detect, even by an experienced toxi-
cologist and accomplish most of their damage
before 1t is possible to do anything about it.
The radiations, on the other hand can be
detected tnstantaneously In infintesimably
minute amounts
Chemical Effect.
The chemical effect of radiations is due
to their capacity to break up certain chemical
confgurations," DR.. Brues says in the Novem.
ber issue OF the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
The case OF the damage done to water is
fairly well understood and since the body
Is mostly water, this is probably the most
important case. Ions are formed from the
water molecules, OF type not usually occurring
in water. They last for an almost immeasur-
ably short time, but they do their damage
during this period. Hydrogen peroxide is one
OF the combinations formed. Certain essential
engines can be paralyzed, certain sensitive
cells are destroyed and changes in other parts
of the living cell may later result in inherited
changes and perhaps may account for cancer.
This all sounds very serious, but perhaps
we can take the bloom off of it by pointing
out that no radiation effect exists which cannot
be duplicated by the action of some known
drug. Total body radiation exposure will
shorten the life span, but tobacco smoking
is another efficient way to accomplish this re-
suit. Cancer can be made more likely by
radiation exposure, but exposure to sunlight
will also increase ones chances of skin cancer"