Why do we assume smell is our weakest sense?
My cat can smell depression. Another family cat could smell my stepfather’s dementia. They both became more affectionate and tactile: the dementia-smelling cat would gently paw my stepfather, when he hadn’t even liked her when he had been well. My cat comes in close when my mood is darker. Perhaps both cats were using other cues, but I’m convinced it was smell. Up until the 18th century, doctors relied for diagnoses on smell as much as anything else For something that Jonas Olofsson calls ‘the easiest and most natural thing in the world’, smell is satisfyingly complicated. When it comes to humans’ ability to smell, as Olofsson persuades us in
